Cuba's Detente Assessment

Tough and Frank

       Josefina Vidal, Cuba's no-nonsense Minister of North American Affairs, spent a long day yesterday -- Monday, May 16th -- interacting with a U. S. delegation in Havana and then updating U.S.-Cuban relations at the insightful news conference depicted above. {The photos are courtesy of Ismael Francisco}. Cuba was hosting the 3rd round of the U.S.-Cuba Bilateral Commission that is designed to assess the efforts of the two nations to normalize relations that have been severely strained since the 1950s but remarkably softened by President Obama's peaceful overtures. Vidal summarized the sometimes heated session with the U. S. State Department's Kristie Kenney as, "A productive meeting." She praised the advances in travel, telecommunications and "other economic spheres" but was quick to add sternly: "The blockade remains in force; there is still no normal banking between the U. S. and Cuba; and U. S. taxpayers, unwittingly I reckon, are still paying dearly to fund special financial incentives for Cubans to defect and special financial incentives that continue to make millionaires and billionaires out of selected Cubans while ignoring, maybe, much better uses of all that money on worthy U. S. projects. If Americans don't understand the fallacy of Wet Foot/Dry Foot, financing useless propaganda schemes like Radio-TV Marti in Miami just to make Cuban-Americans rich, and other such things, I think it might be because their democracy needs a little more, uh, uh, transparency."

        But Vidal, shown here listening to a question that didn't particularly please her, made it plain that "We have a long way to go towards normalizing relations." She reminded the questioner that "In the last six months two U. S. and one French company have been fined for doing minor business with Cuba. That reminds me of the original intent of the blockade dating back to 1962, which was to starve Cuba into capitulating to foreign dictation, even while it also punishes America's best allies and smears the United States' image."

        Vidal yesterday applauded "President Obama's fair-minded decency that has replaced so much animosity towards Cuba," but she stressed that "The minority in Miami and in Congress that still dictate so much of the U. S. policy regarding Cuba must be checked by the majority views in Miami, Congress and the world. After all, the U. S. is a democracy that also should view Cuba with democratic principles too." In that regard, Vidal said, "We want and need normal relations with the United States and most Americans and Cuban-Americans want it too. But, despite the progress during the decent Obama administration, there is more the U. S. must do, like ending the blockade and returning Guantanamo Bay to us, and more the U. S. must stop doing, like funding dissidents on the island. If the U. S. is willing to discuss those things sincerely, we will discuss any U. S. grievances just as sincerely. But sacrificing Cuban sovereignty is one thing I will never, ever discuss!"

         Yesterday's Vidal news conference in Havana was well attended by U. S. and Cuban journalists. It reminded Vidal that, "If the American people are told the truth and provided the details of U.S.-Cuban relations, I trust they will engage more than they have in the past. It is important to them although Cuba is an island, just one nearby nation. Cubans have suffered from the hostility but so have many Americans, plus America's scarred image. Americans need to, I believe, respond to the near unanimity of world opinion regarding the U. S. policy towards Cuba. The U. S. should respond to world and, especially, regional opinion and eliminate its grossly unfair migration policies for Cubans known derisively as Wet Foot/Dry Foot. How does the U. S. have the gall to criticize discrimination in other nations when it so flagrantly discriminates with its own policies."

       Before she exited yesterday's news conference in Havana, a very tired Josefina Vidal had summed up the current status of U.S.-Cuban relations with these words: "We have made significant steps toward greater cooperation in environment protection, civil aviation, direct mail, maritime and port security, health, agriculture, and educational and cultural exchanges. More, of course, needs to be done in those areas and much more needs to be done concerning the embargo, Guantanamo Bay, and a foreign nation supporting and creating dissidents in another country. As you can see, there is a long list of topics. But I think the important thing, with Obama in Washington, is that we have now put these issues on the table for discussion. I reiterate my appreciation for President Obama's concern for the Cuban people and I hope he and his team understand that our major concern is also what is best for the Cuban people as a whole, not just for a selected few."

Josefina Vidal. 

       Jose Ramon Cabanas, Cuba's Ambassador at the newly opened Cuban Embassy in Washington, also held a news conference in Havana yesterday to assess the progress of U.S.-Cuban relations. He said, "There has been, I believe, substantial progress and I hope we can continue on that very honorable path." 

And by the way:

       Alejandro Mayorkas is a Cuban-born American lawyer who was born in Havana in 1959, the year the Cuban Revolution defeated the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Mr. Mayorkas will be back in Havana today -- Tuesday, May 17, 2016 -- as America's important Deputy Homeland Security Secretary. He will hold meetings with Cuban counterparts regarding cooperation "to continue fighting drug trafficking, illegal migration, and transnational crime." It's interesting he included "illegal migration" but he's certainly not at liberty to discuss the U. S. Wet Foot/Dry Foot law that relates to extremely discriminatory "legal migration" incentives that pertain to Cubans at the gross expense of every non-Cuban would-be immigrant in the entire world.

And, oh, yes:

      This AP/Fernando Medina photo shows Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez motoring past the famed Malecon seawall in a 1950s convertible as Cuban children race on foot to keep up. Vin and Michelle are the superstars of the "Fast & Furious" movie franchise that has earned billions of dollars worldwide, and "Fast & Furious 8" spent several weeks shooting in Cuba. The huge production, and especially the superstars who were atop the star-studded cast, brought excitement and money to Cuba. One of the cargo ships that dropped off tons of movie equipment in Havana had three Cuban Wet Foot, Dry Foot stowaways on its journey back to Port Everglades, Florida. Oh, well. Cuba is Cuba.

Michelle Rodriguez & Vin Diesel in Cuba.

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U.S.-Cuba Tangle Today

Huge Meeting in Havana!

       If indeed there is to be "a new era" in U.S.-Cuba relations, a diplomatic session in Havana today might go a long way to determine whether or not such a monumental epoch actually occurs. Bilateral commissions of top diplomats from Cuba and the U. S. will huddle in Havana today to access the progress of President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, which he and Cuban President Raul Castro announced in simultaneous telecasts on December 17th, 2014. Much progress has been made, including the opening of embassies in Washington and Havana for the first time since 1961 as well as remarkable openings in U. S. tourism and commerce with the nearby island. But Obama has only a few months left in his two-term presidency and he has been the only one of the last eleven U. S. presidents with both the courage and intelligence to make inroads into the right-wing Batistiano dominance of U. S. relations with the nearby Caribbean island since 1959 when the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship was overthrown but quickly reconstituted on U. S. soil with a new capital -- Miami, commonly referred to as Little Havana. Despite vast commercial and social ties already in place thanks to Obama, there are eight Cuban-Americans in a mostly bought-and-paid-for U. S. Congress determined to turn-back all of Obama's overtures to Cuba. And that will be accomplished if Obama is succeeded by a Republican president.

           Cuba's brilliant Minister of North American Affairs, Josefina Vidal, will, of course, be the island's top diplomat for today's dialectic and iconoclastic discussions in Havana. This is the third of the so-called Bilateral Commission sessions that were arranged when Vidal and her U. S. counterpart Roberta Jacobson held four diplomatic meetings -- two in Havana and two in Washington -- following President Obama's decision to sanely engage with Cuba for the first time in many decades. Two preliminary bilateral sessions were held back in November, 2015 -- one in Havana and one in Washington. Now at the more important one today in Havana, Vidal says, "The agreements and assessments reached in the first two meetings will be reviewed and the results since then will be analyzed to determine where we are and where we are going." 

         The American delegation in Havana today will be led by Kristi Kenney. Like Vidal in Cuba, Kenney is a brilliant and dedicated veteran diplomat for the United States. She was born 60 years ago in Washington and got her Masters at Tulane and her Bachelor's at Clemson. She has been America's first female Ambassador to both Thailand and the Philippines. She is married to career diplomat William Brownfield who is now the U. S. State Department's chief in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. 

Kristi Kenney, top U. S. diplomat in Havana today.

       Roberta Jacobson and Josefina Vidal skillfully represented their countries in the four historic diplomatic sessions that made gigantic strides in normalizing relations between America and Cuba.

           The above photo should be studied by any American with even a slight patriotic concern for the United States. It shows Marco Rubio -- the first-term Cuban-American U. S. Senator from Miami -- displaying brazen disrespect for a great American patriot, Roberta Jacobson. When she represented the U. S. in the four historic diplomatic sessions with Cuba's Josefina Vidal, Ms. Jacobson was America's Minister of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and a brilliant one. Then President Obama appointed her to the vital position of U. S. Ambassador to Mexico. No decent and patriotic American could be expected to oppose that appointment, but in the dysfunctional U. S. Congress Rubio put a hold on it out of sheer childish, spiteful, unpatriotic and cowardly resentment of her superb representation of the U. S. in the Cuban diplomatic sessions. Rubio, of course, is well aware that Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots from Miami can get away with any punishment of innocent Cubans or innocent Americans who don't readily abide by cruel Batistiano dominance of America's Cuban policy -- with the airplane bombing of Cubana Flight 455, the car-bombing of the caring Miami newsman Emilio Milian, the cruelest and longest embargo in history, and a resounding and alarmist 191-to-2 yearly UN vote being mere microcosms of how Cuban-American extremists since 1959 have been allowed to reshape the image of democracy and the United States. Many decent members of the U. S. Congress railed against Rubio's blockage of Jacobson's appointment because she was surely the most qualified and because topical events on America's southern border demanded that the U. S. have an ambassador in Mexico City...especially to combat drugs, etc., and the thousands of Cubans currently bedeviling all South American nations as they flock to the U. S. border with Mexico to touch U. S. soil as greedy human traffickers tell them Obama is about to end the special Wet Foot/Dry Foot privileges available only to Cubans. After many months of being blocked by Rubio, Jacobson was finally appointed U. S. Ambassador to Mexico. But do study the above photo. It shows that Rubio and the other seven Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress...moderate Cuban-Americans are not eligible, you know...never have to worry that the American people or the U. S. media will hold them accountable regardless of what they do to sate their Cuban agendas, which most Cuban-Americans oppose but such opposition has no input.

         Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the two first-term Cuban-American U. S. Senators -- were serious Republican presidential candidates until they were wiped out by non-politician Donald Trump, reflecting a fact that Americans may finally be tired of bought-and-paid-for politicians. Rubio and Cruz arrived in the Senate running for President without remotely accomplishing anything meaningful in Congress -- except for threatening to shut down the government and vowing to reverse every positive Obama accomplishment regarding Cuba starting their "first day" in the White House. While the Rubio-Cruz extremism and other fatal money-and-power-hungry flaws eliminated them in the 2016 presidential race, they are already massively campaigning for the 2020 election and beyond. They have just one identical qualification: They will sell-out to any conservative, right-wing or Jewish billionaire on the planet. And that's why, though briefly portrayed as victims of the Trump phenomenon, they are already making media-exploitative speeches and resuming their lavish courting of billionaires with their White House sights firmly set on 2020. While there are literally scores of highly qualified Cuban-Americans, Rubio and Cruz are the last things Americans, Cuban-Americans, and citizens of the world need in America's White House.

Meanwhile:

       A cacophony of early results of President Obama's New Cuban Policy can continue to move forward if today's bilateral meeting featuring Cuba's Josefina Vidal and America's Kristi Kenney is successful.

       The unparalleled Obama-led process of Restoring Diplomatic Relations with Cuba is just as vital to the U. S. as it is to Cuba. After all, America's luminescent Cuban policy since the 1898 Spanish-American War and especially since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 has shamed the United States and democracy in the eyes of the world while also paradoxically garnering huge international support for Cuba.

       President Obama's easing Legal Travel to Cuba for U. S. Citizens has already been monumental and that's even before commercial airplane flights from the U. S. to Cuba, banned since 1962, begin this fall with up to 110 daily flights. Prior to Obama, everyday Americans for over half-a-century had been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. Minus hyperbolic exaggeration, that alone established a glowing and symbiotic legacy as a touchstone for President Obama's unique guts and patriotism.

Yes, Obama's U.S.-Cuba New Era has arrived.

The entire world wants the Cuba Embargo to end.

    A few crooked nosed, cross-eyed, and greedy Americans aligned with a few greedy and revengeful Cuban-Americans have self-servingly dictated The Blockade of Cuba for more than a half-century.

          This is the Image of America -- jaundiced with greed and beady-eyed with desire -- that the rest of the world has of the U. S. as it gazes southward at its island neighbor, little helpless but lush Cuba. No other American policy has ever for such a sustained period shed as gruesome an image of the U. S. as its Cuban policy, which the American people have gutlessly and guilelessly allowed to persist decade after decade.

       Today in Havana at a crucial bilateral meeting, America's unjustifiable Cuban policy comes up against the diplomatic astuteness of Josefina Vidal. She saved Cuba as a sovereign nation in 2002 when the George W. Bush administration had turned its Latin American policy over to anti-Castro zealots and it appeared that coups against first Venezuela and then Cuba were very much in play. A decade-and-a-half later, taking advantage of the far more decent Obama administration, Vidal is trying to save Cuba again.

        The sheer genius of Vidal, working with reasonable elements within the Obama administration, has already achieved far more than the miscreants in the U. S. Congress said was possible. Her first line in the sand was the pernicious Batistiano-directed designation of Cuba as a Sponsor of Terrorism, which she got erased. She then got embassies reopened in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, plus openings for trade, tourism, and commerce between the two nations that had been verboten since before Vidal was born. But let it be known that today in Havana America's top diplomat Kristi Kenney will learn that Vidal "will never agree to full normalization of relations" unless three more of her demands are met: {1} The embargo, in place since 1962, must end; {2} the U. S. must enter into serious discussions about the return of Guantanamo Bay to Cuba; and {3} the U. S. must cease funding and creating dissidents on the island. The Cuban-American hardliners in Congress laugh at those three Vidal demands, just as they laughed when she demanded that Cuba be removed from the Terrorism list. Also, Cuban-Americans regularly and stealthily attach anti-Cuban bills onto massive so-called "must pass" multi-billion-dollar defense, transportation, etc., bills and they then become legal U. S. laws that greatly harm Cubans, Americans and everyone else...while recent "slippers" like Mario Diaz-Balart and Ron DeSantis grin & smirk. So, in addition to battling the strongest nation in the world, Vidal must deal with a dysfunctional U. S. Congress that is at the beck & call of Cuban-American hardliners. Thus, she's a billion-to-one underdog but both her and Cuba have been similarly underestimated for decades. That, in fact, is a key part of the Cuban mystique.

      The mammoth United States and the island of Cuba have confronted each other in Cold and Hot wars since the 1950s. Each day Cuba has been a billion-to-one underdog. It still is. But....it's still there.

       America's gutsy two-term President, Mr. Obama, has officially proclaimed: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." BUT, unchecked Cuban extremists have proven they can obtain enough Jesse Helms, Dan Burtons, Robert Toricellies, etc., in Congress to craft whatever anti-Cuban and pro-Cuban American laws they desire, with the Congress-approved pipelines of tax dollars steadily flowing from Washington-to-Miami to back-up those laws. And, of course, a Republican might succeed Obama in the White House within a few months. Yes, Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States as long as Mr. Obama is President. BUT after he leaves office, there will be "a threat."  And Vidal knows it.

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Hurting U. S. to Hurt Cuba

An Unending Pattern!

        Ron DeSantis is the latest in a long, long line of Florida members of the U. S. Congress who seem willing to hurt the United States of America in order to hurt Revolutionary Cuba. If that is not so, perhaps Rep. DeSantis might explain why he attached yet another anti-Cuba bill to a large defense bill that many of his colleagues -- as well as democracy-lovers such as Sarah Stephens -- believe will severely harm cooperative U. S. agreements with Cuba that help protect Americans from human trafficking, Florida criminals fleeing to Cuba, the threats from potential oil spills and other environmental issues, etc., etc.

         Ron DeSantis was born 37 years ago in Jacksonville, Florida. He is a veteran of the U. S. Navy who graduated from Yale University and from the Harvard Law School. He has represented Florida's 6th District in the U. S. Congress since 2013 and now he is seeking the Senate seat being vacated by his Miami friend Marco Rubio. Like the previous line of anti-Castro zealots elected to Congress from Florida, DeSantis made a beeline for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, apparently trained to recognize that Cuba is still a foreign country and being on that committee is a good way to hurt Cuba. The problem is, along with many other moral issues, hurting the U. S. in order to hurt Cuba seems not to bother anti-Cuba members of Congress from Florida. The majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami support President Obama's sane and decent overtures to Cuba that will help...indeed are helping...many Americans. Of course, DeSantis seems to oppose anything that helps Cubans on the island even if it also helps millions of Americans and Cuban-Americans. DeSantis was livid when Obama opened long-closed doors by removing Cuba from the Sponsors of Terrorism list; Desantis raved against Obama's freeing Alan Gross from his Cuban prison because, apparently, it was a positive for Cuba; and DeSantis as a federally paid lawyer lauded the U. S. occupation of Guantanamo Bay, apparently because the theft belittles Cuba. As illustrated by the above photo of DeSantis using Fox News as an anti-Cuban propaganda machine, his political career -- first the House, soon the Senate, etc. -- is propelled by America's omnipotent right-wing media, the Bush dynasty, AIPAC, the Tea Party, etc. Of course, the mainstream U. S. media doesn't have the courage to hold anti-Cuba zealots from Florida accountable for their anti-Cuban tactics that are also anti-American.

However:

      Sarah Stephens -- the democracy-loving head of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas -- does have the courage to rebuke self-serving assaults on innocent Cubans and innocent Americans. In fact, that's one reason she created CDA. Each Friday on her CDA website, Ms. Stephens posts a "Cuba Central" segment that is each week's best summation of U.S.-Cuban relations. Her latest essay -- Friday, May 13th, 2016 -- led off by explaining in detail the latest gutlessness by Rep. Ron DeSantis regarding a little bill he slipped into a big bill for the purpose of hurting Cuba that Sarah Stephens points out also hurts Americans. Of course, the United States and democracy would be better served if the mainstream U. S. media had as much concern for America and for democracy as Sarah Stephens does.

      Like DeSantis, Corrine Brown was born in Jacksonville, Florida. And like DeSantis, she represents Florida in the U. S. Congress -- but quite differently, I might add. Congresswoman Brown has no revenge, economic or political motives to hurt Cubans on the island and certainly she is appalled at anti-Cuban laws easily rammed through the U. S. Congress that hurt Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and Americans. Congresswoman Corrine Brown strongly supports President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba "to help the good people in Cuba as well as the good people in Florida and throughout America."

      Kathy Castor was born in Miami but she has bravely represented Tampa in the U. S. Congress since 2007. Facing taunts and threats in Florida all her political life, she has campaigned relentlessly to normalize relations with Cuba. Ms. Castor, you see, cares about Cubans on the island and she cares about her constituents in the Tampa area who "will surely benefit immensely if we normalize relations with Cuba."

Kathy Castor relentlessly promotes trade with Cuba.

         This photo shows Congresswoman Kathy Castor, on the left, in Cuba on a friendly mission sponsored by Sarah Stephens and her Center for Democracy in the Americas. That's Ms. Stephens on the right.

      This photo shows Congresswoman Kathy Castor getting ready to board a charter flight from Tampa to Cuba. On this visit she took along other members of Congress to urge them to support President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Since 1962, the pernicious U. S. embargo has prohibited commercial airplane flights to Cuba. But beginning in the fall, that anti-American and anti-democracy aspect of the embargo will end, thanks to the brave decency of Kathy Castor and others. 

         It seems the mainstream media in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave doesn't have the freedom or the bravery to provide Americans with Congresswoman Kathy Castor's views about Cuba.

     It is, I believe, no coincidence that Miami-born Kathy Castor has represented Tampa in the U. S. Congress since 2007. Although the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami support President Obama's and Congresswoman Castor's attempts to normalize relations with Cuba, it appears that Miami only sends extreme anti-Castro zealots -- like the four depicted above -- to the U. S. Congress. Marco Rubio -- another anti-Castro zealot from Miami -- is giving up his Senate seat because of his failed presidential bid.

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Cuba, Congress and Florida

An Evolving Revolution!!

       Meet Congressman Patrick Murphy from Florida. If Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton are not currently the three most interesting and important politicians in the U. S., I nominate Representative Murphy for those two accolades. He is 33-years-old and very rich, having inherited millions from his family's construction business. He left the Republican Party and became a Democrat in 2011 for the same reason many, including me, did; he said he was "disgusted" with the right-wing Tea Party's dominance of the Republican Party. He won his congressional seat in Florida's 18th District by upsetting Tea Party-darling Allen Ford, an African-American ultra-conservative. He replaced Tea Party-darling Ileana Ros-Lehtinen as the 18th District's representative in Congress. {Ros-Lehtinen switched to the 27th District and, as a Bush-and-Tea Party-darling she has been in the U. S. Congress since 1989}. And now Murphy is a Democrat that is favored to win the Senate seat forfeited by Bush-and-Tea Party-darling Marco Rubio who decided to forfeit his one-term in the Senate in exchange for his failed presidential bid. So young Mr. Murphy is seeking to replace two of Miami's most visceral anti-Castro Cuban-Americans -- following Ros-Lehtinen in the 18th congressional District and now bidding to take Rubio's Senate seat. Murphy, by the way, was born in Miami 33 years ago and is a University of Miami graduate, but not a Cuban-American.

      Patrick Murphy's bid for one of Florida's two Senate seats is a BIG DEAL, and not just because he captured Ros-Lehtinen's old seat in the House of Representatives or because, as a Democrat, he is trying to capture Republican Marco Rubio's Senate seat. The Republican grasp of the U. S. Senate and Congress may end if Murphy wins the ongoing Florida race. And that's one reason why it is colossally important.

       Polls show that these two Democratic Representatives -- Patrick Murphy on the left and Alan Grayson -- are currently edging out five Republican candidates in the race for that omnipotent Senate seat. Grayson is interesting too. He is 58-years-old and a Harvard-educated lawyer who has confirmed...admitted, actually...to a net worth exceeding $31 million. Like Murphy, he honorably hates the Tea Party, which Grayson equates to the "Ku Klux Klan." And, oh yes, in addition to being a multi-millionaire Harvard lawyer, Grayson was born and reared in the Bronx, New York -- a long way from Miami! Murphy, who has inherited up to $5 million, is Miami-born and University of Miami-educated. Both hate the Tea Party. Neither is a Cuban-American trying to capture the Senate seat currently occupied by Cuban-American, Cuban-hardliner, and Tea Party-darling Marco Rubio. MAY THE BETTER DEMOCRAT WIN, because the Republican & Tea Party stranglehold on the U. S. Congress {which made ex-Republicans out of Murphy, me, and millions of others} is a disgrace to the U. S. democracy, as is the Bush/Tea Party/Cuban-American stranglehold on Florida politics. {Florida has a whopping 29 electoral votes that can decide presidential elections, even putting a man, Bush in 2000, in the White House even though his opponent got the MOST NATIONAL VOTES!}.

      Of the five Republicans running against the Democrats Murphy and Grayson, Ron DeSantis has the best chance of winning Florida's Senate seat that Marco Rubio is vacating. DeSantis has represented Florida's 6th District in the U. S. House of Representatives since 2013. He was born 37 years ago in Jacksonville, Florida. He graduated from Yale and then from Harvard Law School. Like Rubio, DeSantis is a Bush and Tea Party darling. Bush right-wing operatives like John Bolton are avid DeSantis supporters.

Ron DeSantis is a retired Lt. Commander in the U. S. Navy.

Rep. DeSantis is extremely conservative.

        Of course, Fox News and all the television-radio conservative propagandists love Ron DeSantis and want him to capture Marco Rubio's Senate seat for the Republicans. He is also strongly supported by the Bush dynasty, the Tea Party, and AIPAC, the omnipotent Israeli lobby. Rep. DeSantis is also vehemently against President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. In other words, Rep. DeSantis is not much different than Rubio when it comes to right-wing, bought-and-paid-for politics, which also means that, as an establishment-dandy, DeSantis is perhaps even more dangerous than the still-ambitious Rubio, whose approval in Florida, his home state, is 42% and where non-politician Trump overwhelmed him. 

       Carlos Beruff {photo courtesy of The Miami New Times} is a Cuban-American who was born in Miami 58 years ago. The building company he formed in 1984 has made him a very rich man. Back in February he announced his bid as a Republican to win the coveted Senate seat being vacated by fellow Miami-born Cuban-American Marco Rubio. A Quinnipiac poll shows that Beruff is a threat to emerge the winner.

      Carlos Beruff is known in the Miami-Bradenton area as "the Cuban Donald Trump."  They are both rich developers who had never run for public office prior to recognizing that Americans are totally fed-up with what they consider a rigged establishment in a bought-and-paid-for political system...so, hey!!...a non-politician that doesn't exude a bought-and-paid-for persona might win! Lo 'n behold, Beruff and Trump might be right. Beruff was at a Cuban bakery in Miami back on February 29th when he announced his bid to win Rubio's old Senate seat. Now he doesn't distance himself from the Trump phenomenon. On the Florida campaign trail, Mr. Beruff said, "I think Donald Trump has tapped into the dissatisfaction of the public."

      Florida's extremely important Senate race reminds me of a recent quotation from Sarah Stephens, the democracy-loving Founder and Leader of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas. Ms. Stephens -- for the sake of democracy, America and the region -- is perhaps America's most important advocate for a sane and decent Cuban policy, which she clearly considers insane and indecent because of decades-old laws easily pushed through a dysfunctional, bought-and-paid-for U. S. Congress. Ms. Stephens, undoubtedly, is keeping a quizative eye on that Senatorial race in Florida, and she is surely not unhappy with Rubio's exit but is probably wary of another Cuban-American, Beruff, getting it or another Tea-Party darling, DeSantis, getting it. As she gazes at Florida and at a U. S. Congress with an approval rating in the single digits, Ms. Stephens recently wrote: "Leaving America's Cuban policy in the hands of the U. S. Congress is like a child with a hammer who thinks everything is a nail." If you study that quote, I think you will realize why President Obama has listened very closely to Sarah Stephens as he tries to attach a degree of sanity and decency to America's Cuban policy. In other words, putting either DeSantis or Beruff in the U. S. Senate from Florida would be like giving them a hammer and telling them Cuba is a nail!!

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Embargo Madness

Another Half-Century?

       This photo was taken in Havana yesterday {May 11} by Alexandre Meneghhini for Reuters. It shows Doug Oberhelman getting ready to hold a news conference. Mr. Oberhelman is the CEO of Caterpillar, the world's largest maker of heavy equipment with headquarters in Peoria, Illinois. Mr. Oberhelman is among scores of U. S. business executives anxious to do business in Cuba. He loves Cuba's ultra-modern Mariel Port Economic Zone that received a billion-dollar upgrade and is a key to Cuba's economic future. Located 28 miles southwest of Havana, Mariel is, according to Mr. Oberhelman, "an efficient modern harbor that competes with others around the world." Mr. Oberhelman envisions a Caterpillar plant at the Mariel Port.

 A miffed Doug Oberhelman, the Caterpillar boss, was asked yesterday in Havana when he expects the U. S. embargo of Cuba to end. He said he didn't know but that "It can't come soon enough for me." That sentiment, of course, is echoed by CEOs in all 50 of America's states, but they too are victims, like collateral damage, of their nation's embargo against Cuba.

     Caroline McConnie is the top executive at Rimco, a company in the U. S. Territory of Puerto Rico. She says she is already begging the U. S. government to allow Rimco to sell Caterpillar products in Cuba under an agreement she has with Mr. Oberhelman.

      The U. S. embargo of Cuba has existed since 1962. President Obama's historic Executive Actions have sliced remarkably into many of its most onerous aspects but its removal is up to the U. S. Congress that, for many decades, mandated countless U. S. laws at the whims of a handful of self-serving and revengeful Cuban-Americans, many of whom are now second-generation billionaires. According to declassified U. S. documents, the embargo began in 1962 after assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack had failed to regain control of the island from the pugnacious Cuban Revolution. Those documents reveal that the embargo was designed to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to induce them to overthrow Castro. It's now the longest and cruelest embargo in history by a strong nation against a weaker one, an archaic relic opposed 191-to-2 by a yearly vote in the United Nations and one even opposed by most Cuban-Americans in Miami!! The embargo hasn't starved Cubans but it has surely deprived them, just as it would have deprived or might even overthrown nations much stronger than the Caribbean island -- Canada, for example. As Caterpillar's Doug Oberhelman and Rimco's Caroline McConnie attested yesterday, the embargo has deprived a lot of Americans too. Yet, Cuban hardliners and their sycophants in the U. S. Congress could care less. Their lushly funded propaganda machines continue to bellow about overthrowing Fidel Castro before he turns 90 on August 13th. And after Castro, they'll think of something else. The vast Castro Cottage Industry in the U. S. is flush with congressionally approved piggy banks providing unlimited streams of tax-dollars to a selected few, while shaming the U. S. worldwide.

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