The Predictable Rubio

The 2020 Presidential Candidate

      This superb political cartoon this week by the great Chan Lowe of the Tribune Content Agency actually did not surprise me one iota. You may recall that I laughed aloud in this forum when Marco Rubio the presidential candidate announced that he absolutely was not going to seek reelection to the U. S. Senate from Florida. Even after ending his presidential bid when Donald Trump wiped him out in the Florida primary {his home state}, Rubio still insisted he would not run for reelection to the Senate. I laughed again, you'll recall, right here in this forum, knowing full well he would indeed run. He confirmed that this week, garnering the above reaction from Mr. Lowe, who also probably laughed about Rubio's repeated denials.

       Representing Miami as a first-term anti-Castro zealot in the U. S. Senate, Rubio railed like a spoiled child against anyone that showed even a modicum of decency and sanity regarding the U. S. policy towards Cuba that targets everyday Cubans in the guise of hurting Castro. The above Andy Marlette gem explains that Pope Francis was among those assailed by the juvenile and self-serving tirades of Senator Rubio.

      This masterpiece by Bill Day reflects how Rubio has 100% of the time undignified the Senate by thumbing his nose childishly at any attempt by President Obama to make the U. S. and the world a safer and more cordial place. Rubio got wiped out in his home state of Florida by non-politician Donald Trump, while President Obama, even as a targeted President, has a positive approval rating nationally in June of 2016.

       This icy gem is a reminder that, except for bloviating against Mr. Obama, Rubio has accomplished nothing for his Florida constituents or the American people in the U. S. Senate. His one notable effort at achieving something, a flawed immigration bill, melted in his hands when it first saw the light of day.

       Marco Rubio's now famous "Water Bottle Moment" occurred on network television when the Republican Party afforded him the opportunity to prove he was "America's next rising political star." The "kool-aid" analogy above reflects the fact Rubio wasn't ready then and he won't be ready in 2020.

          Marco Rubio's highly financed presidential bid in 2016 had a free ride from the mainstream U. S. media and from about a dozen of America's richest billionaires -- Sheldon Leonard, Paul Singer, etc.

      Rubio's constant courting of billionaires like top Republican donor Paul Singer provided enough money to buy up several presidential races, except for the fact that America has apparently entered an era when citizens seemingly have tired of such money-crazed anti-democratic tactics. Floridians sent Rubio to the Senate to represent them, and both he and his large staff are being paid a lot of tax dollars, but he hit the Senate running for President and was dead last among the 100 Senators in actually being around to cast votes because he was too busy running around campaigning for President and attending fund-raisers. 

      Sheldon Adelson, the very controversial Jewish multi-billionaire Las Vegas tycoon, was courted heavily by Rubio, creating composite images such as this one. Campaigning in Florida against Trump, Rubio encountered protest signs that said "Embargo Israel, Not Cuba" to taunt his indelible "for sale" image.

      Rubio's emphasis on Jewish billionaires cost him considerable support from his Florida constituents, the ones who had sent him to the Senate. It's one reason he got trounced in his home state by Trump.

         Campaigning in his home state of Florida against the victorious Donald Trump, Rubio undoubtedly didn't expect to see protest signs like the one depicted above -- EMBARGO ISRAEL NOT CUBA. Despite Rubio's vow to "roll back" every single positive overture to Cuba that President Obama has made, polls consistently show that even Cuban-Americans in Miami favor Obama's Cuban policy, not Rubio's. And Rubio was reminded that he was sent to the Senate to represent Floridians, not Israel. Despite the unanimity of polls, Miami still seems capable of sending only anti-Castro zealots to Congress -- Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balart brothers, Rubio, Curbelo, etc. -- although Miami-Dade has a million qualified moderate Cubans.

       Ken Silverstein is a veteran Washington-based journalist who has been a key reporter for the Associated Press, the Washington Editor for Harper's Magazine, etc. He seems to believe that Rubio is the most corrupt serious presidential candidate American has had. Appalled by the U. S. networks fawning all over Rubio, Mr. Silverstein penned a book-length article, which you can readily Google, entitled: "Poor Little Rich Boy Runs Into Real Estate Trouble." The sub-title highlighted Rubio"s "Piles of Unexplained Cash." And then the very first sentence was: "When it comes to sheer brazen corruption, chicanery and dishonesty there is one candidate who stands head and shoulders above everyone else and he is the right-wing Cuban-American and Tea Party darling Senator Marco Rubio of -- naturally -- the great state of Florida." Of course, the Rubio that Ken Silverstein describes is the Rubio that the mainstream U. S. media and many multi-billionaires wanted to be elected President in 2016, but they'll try again in 2020 and 2024.

The article by Ken Silverstein featured the above graphic. 

       A notable Cuban-American journalist is Arturo Lopez Levy. The powerful Huffington Post on 04/14/2015 published an article by Lopez Levy entitled "Why Senator Rubio's Lies Matter." You can easily Google that title and read it. Lopez Levy wrote: "Throughout his political career, Rubio deceived Floridians, adoring Republicans and others by claiming that his parents fled the Cuba of Fidel Castro. This is a lie exposed by hard journalism in the Washington Post. His parents left Cuba in 1956 as exiles from a tyrannical regime, that of Fulgencio Batista Zaldivar, the right-wing dictatorship that Fidel Castro overthrew." Lopez Levy opined that such lies by Rubio do indeed matter as he condescendingly seems to think that Americans are too stupid to care and the mainstream U. S. media as well as billionaire donors will continue to "adore" him regardless. 

 But this image of Rubio allegedly selling out to billionaires unceremoniously helped end his 2016 presidential bid that was highlighted by his drubbing in his home-state of Florida by Republican long-shot Donald Trump. After bowing out of the presidential race, Rubio still assured everyone that he was not going to seek reelection to the Senate, which he had depicted as being beneath him and "never getting anything done." Yet, with Rubio's ego, the Senate is now necessary to his planned presidential bids in 2020 and 2024. Thus, it was laughable to fall for Rubio's "promise" that he would not seek re-election.

        And so...this composite shows how the Florida's senatorial race is currently shaking out. In the center is Senator Marco Rubio, who will sail away with the Republican nomination. On the left is U. S. Representative Alan Grayson and on the right is U. S. Representative Patrick Murphy. Grayson and Murphy are the two top Democratic challengers to Marco Rubio. This week, on June 22nd, a Quinnipiac University poll indicated that Rubio will win. Rubio leads Murphy 47% to 40% and he leads Grayson 48% to 40%.

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Big News From Havana

Affects Region & World

      This photo was taken at a very important news conference in Havana yesterday. On the left is Marcela Duran, a spokesperson for the government of Colombia. Next to her is FARC rebel Marco Calarca. FARC is the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. At this news conference Ms. Duran and Mr. Calarca announced a peace agreement. That's big news...really big news!! Since 1964...for over five decades...Colombia and FARC have fought a bloody civil war that has killed about 250,000 people and displaced over five million. American taxpayers have contributed tens of billions of dollars in helping the Colombian government's attempt to wipe out FARC, which has never happened. But since November of 2012 Cuba has hosted peace talks designed to finally...finally...end the war. At the above news conference in Havana, Duran and Calarca announced a peace agreement to end the hostilities. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will attend the official signing ceremony, as will luminaries such as Michelle Bachelet, the President of Chile, because the conflict has affected the entire world and, especially, Latin America.

     Cuban President Raul Castro has brokered the peace talks between Colombia and FARC for four years. This Luis Acosta/AFP/ Getty Images photo shows Castro forcing a handshake between Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timochenko. The peace agreement reached this week is a positive Cuban contribution to the region that even the mainstream media in the United States should acknowledge. President Santos said, "We are adversaries, but we are advancing in the same direction." Timochenko said, "The agreement creates a propitious environment."

     From 1964 till 2014, the fighting was fierce and often ruthless on both sides in the FARC-Colombia Civil War. By 2014, when the peace talks in Havana began producing positive results, the fighting tapered off. And then this week -- June, 2016 -- President Santos and FARC leader Timochenko have made peace.

      Over 15,000 FARC guerrilla fighters are still considered terrorists and criminals but the FARC negotiators in Havana have insisted that they be pardoned or given amnesty if they agree to stop fighting.

        This photo shows Judith and Isa, FARC guerrilla fighters. Young females from poor Colombian families, believing they have been discriminated against by a government catering to rich Colombians, have always made up a significant proportion of the FARC armed forces. Hopefully, the Cuban-brokered peace terms will make life much better for all Colombians, including Judith and Isa in their war-ravaged homeland.

       Since 1962 the U. S. embargo against Cuba has prevented commercial airplane flights from the U. S. to Cuba. Thanks to President Obama's bold, brave and astute defiance of the U. S. Congress, that will change drastically on September 9th, 2016!! That's when hundreds of daily flights from the U. S. mainland to Cuba will commence. American Airlines has just announced its initial fares to the Cuban cities of Cienfuegos, Holguin, Varadero, Camaguey, and Santa Clara. The round-trip rates will be $286, including all taxes, on flights from Miami, Boston, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Washington, D. C. The price will be $400 for flights from Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas/Fort Worth. And for flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco the price will be $500. All major U. S. airlines are chomping at the bits to fly into Havana but the Cuban government is already almost overwhelmed with flights to Jose Marti Airport in its capital city.

       The CEO of Southwest Airlines, Gary Kelly, is also interested in the Cuban market. He says the U. S. has approved two Southwest routes to secondary Cuban cities but he is still awaiting his application for flights to Havana. He says, "Commercial flights from the U. S. to Cuba haven't been allowed for half-a-century, so it's uncharted territory. Also, the embargo still prohibits everyday Americans from visiting Cuba strictly as tourists but there are 12 reasons Washington now recognizes, but how that shakes out is quite problematic."

         Southwest Airlines is America's 4th largest carrier based on traffic but it is the biggest U. S. domestic hauler. The airline industry in the U. S. is booming and Southwest is setting earnings records this year as it strives to cautiously enter the emerging Cuban market and analyze the new U.S.-Cuban rapprochement.

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Cuba's Extraordinary Promise

Updated: June 23rd, 2016!!

          The best photo-journalist in America is Lisette Poole of the New York Times. Her photos and journalism out of Cuba consistently provide the best insight regarding what is happening on the island. And a lot is happening as the island adjusts to President Obama's efforts to normalize relations that have been drastically frayed and hostile since the Cuban Revolution ended the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in 1959. The above Lisette Poole photo illustrates her article this week in the NY Times entitled "A Rush of Americans, Seeking Gold in Cuban Soil." As usual, her photo alone tells the story that her writing merely embellishes. It shows the Finca Marta organic farm 30 miles from Havana. It grows 25 different crops under a black screen that protects the plants from the tropical sun. Ms. Poole wrote: "Being an agriculture official in Cuba these days is like living in a resort town all your friends want to visit." She then explains that a tsunami of Americans are flocking to Cuba to partake in the island's vast promise and ingenuity. She says those Americans "seek the prizes that are likely to come if the United States ends its trade restrictions." Those restrictions have been in place for half-a-century and remain codified by the U. S. Congress to sate the revenge and economic desires of a few Cuban-Americans at the expense of everybody else everywhere.

       This Lisette Poole photo shows Cuban farmers working an organic field near Havana. The article in the New York Times written by Kim Severson said: "Cuba, it turns out, is a rare oasis of organic and sustainable agriculture. To be sure, Cuba still imports 60 percent to 80 percent of its food." The June 20-2016 article said efforts by the Obama administration to have U. S. farmers sell food to Cuba and Cuba to sell organic food to the U. S. is being stalemated by elements in the U. S. Congress still clinging to the U. S. embargo.

      Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has been to Cuba trying desperately to improve trade relations with the island. The aforementioned New York Times article quoted Mr. Vilsack as saying, "We have a tremendous opportuity in Cuba to expand exports of soybeans, rice and poultry at some point. They in turn have a tremendous opportuitiy to import into the U. S. organic production. Trade must be a two-way street."

Tom Vilsack, blue shirt, at organic farm in Cuba.

        This Lisette Poole photo illustrated her New York Times article entitled: "The Key to Cuban Ballet's Future." Cuba arguably produces the world's best-trained ballet performers but, like the island's unique quality and quantity of baseball players, not to mention the most doctors per capita in the world, the embargo administered for over half-a-century by the nearby world superpower restricts the island from enjoying the fruits of its labor and its talents. So, the key to Cuba's future, in ballet and other endeavors, is to not be restrained by a foreign power, which all too often is the fate of small nations seeking independence.

         The head of the U. S. Small Business Administration, Maria Contreras-Sweet, was in Cuba Monday and Tuesday, June 20th and 21st. She met with top Cuban economic officials in Havana and also toured the Mariel Port Economic Zone 30 miles southwest of the Capitol that is so vital to the island's economic revival. Ms. Contreras-Sweet said, "Trade relations between our two nations will surely help everyone."

      As America's boss at the Small Business Administration, Maria Contreras-Sweet represents the well-being of 28 million small businesses, many of whom are keenly interested in doing business with Cuba.

      The award-winning CBS producer and long-time Cuban expert, Portia Siegelbaum, this week tweeted from Havana: "Everyday amazed by all the Americans in Havana. This a/m met large group of mostly young real estate specialists."

         This photo, if you study it carefully, will also tell you about yet another Obama-orchestrated slice into the lucrative Cuban pie that a lot of greedy souls have been tasting and enjoying for a lot of pre-Obama decades. The fancy 1950s-era convertible, which Cuba is famous for, is advertising "CubaMax TV on behalf of dishLATINO. It has something to do with Cuban broadcasting coming to the United States of America!

     Frankly, I really don't know what CUBAMaxTV is all about, so you should Google the particulars. But I do believe that anything that gives long-propagandized Americans a fairer and more balanced view of Cuba is worthwhile, especially in a democracy.

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Obama's Cuban Imprint

 It's Becoming Indelible 
{Tuesday, June 21st, 2016 }

         USA Today is using the above photo to report that coffee -- not rum, cigars or sugar -- will become the first Cuban product to be sold in the United States in half-a-century. The photo shows a Cuban tending to coffee plants in the Sierra Maestra Mountains in eastern Cuba. The revelation unearthed by Alan Gomez reflects another crack in the U. S. Cuban embargo that, till the Obama administration, had sated the revengeful, political and economic desires of an unsavory minority, hurting everyday Cubans the most. Mr. Obama's corrections are continuing.

       In 2014 Maria Contreras-Sweet was confirmed by the United States Senate as President Obama's nominee to head America's Small Business Administration. Yesterday -- April 20th -- she arrived in Cuba to further President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the island. Her mission, and the President's, is two-fold: {1} Open up a market in Cuba to help America's small businesses; and {2} help the Cuban people who have been hurt since the 1950s by all presidential administrations prior to Mr. Obama's.

    Maria Contreras-Sweet was a child when she moved with her family to America from Mexico. On Monday and Tuesday this week, she and her staff will huddle with Cuban officials as well as Cuban entrepreneurs to try to facilitate "mutually beneficial alliances." She carved her business credentials by founding a bank that served people the big banks ignored. "President Obama wants to help the Cuban people and the American people," Ms. Contreras-Sweet said, "and so do I. Aligning U. S. small businesses with Cuban small businesses will accomplish that."

President Obama's Secretary of Commerce is Penny Pritzker.

      This photo, taken by Yamil Lage, shows U. S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker in Cuba. It was a business trip but she graciously spent considerable time with everyday Cubans, especially children like the little girl above. Ms. Pritzker is a multi-billionaire in the U. S. but she cares deeply about helping Cuba and also helping non-billionaire American businesspeople.

          By appointing talented and caring people like Penny Pritzker {above} and Maria Contreras-Sweet, President Obama laid the groundwork for his plans to normalize relations with Cuba, reversing six decades of pure animus directed at the nearby island by right-wing Americans and revengeful Cuban-Americans. While President Obama himself has very respectfully visited Cuba, he also continues to send people like Penny Pritzker and Maria Contreras-Sweet to Cuba to deal kindly with the much-maligned Cubans on the island.

         Immediately prior to Obama, the Bush dynasty and other powerful Republicans had spent six decades making a plethora of anti-Castro Cuban exiles super-rich and super-powerful. President George W. Bush's Secretary of Commerce from 2005 till Obama's arrival in 2009 was Havana-born Carlos Gutierrez who is shown above sending a thank-you smile to President Bush.

      Carlos Gutierrez was born on Nov. 4-1953 in Havana, Cuba. His family owned a pineapple plantation. As a young man, Gutierrez worked for the Kellogg Company in Mexico and later became CEO and Chairman of the famed American company. His wealth and his anti-Castro fervor made him attractive to the Bush dynasty and the Republican Party, and he took advantage of that power to hit back at Fidel Castro.

        Like a lot of rich and powerful anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in the U. S., Carlos Gutierrez is not without controversy. As the Bush Secretary of Commerce, he was particularly and not surprisingly cruel in regards to Cuba. For example, when 240,000 Cuban homes were destroyed by devastating back-to-back hurricanes, some nations actually sent material and economic help. Representing the U. S., Commerce Secretary Gutierrez held news conferences teasing and mocking Cuba by saying he had X-amount of tax dollars ready to send to Cuba as long as the Cuban government wasn't involved. Cuba assumed he meant to use the hurricanes as an additional excuse to send money to dissidents on the island, not to help devastated Cubans. 

But lo 'n Behold, guess what!!

       The very rich Carlos Gutierrez is now 62-years-old and America's FORMER Secretary of Commerce. He is co-chair of the lucrative Albright Stonebridge Group. Amazingly, he now supports President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba and he has even paid a friendly visit to his native country. He says, "The Cuban people are the biggest losers in the policy of Cuba isolationism." ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! WOW!! I wonder if he cleared that comment with the Bush dynasty?

        The latest U. S. superstar to visit Cuba is Jon Bon Jovi, the legendary Hall of Fame musician. He, his wife and a group of their friends just returned from a 3-day trip to the island. They toured historic sites as well as the nightly entertainment circuit in Havana. Bon Jovi said, like the Rolling Stones, he plans to do a concert in Cuba.

Bon Jovi was born 54 years ago in New Jersey.

And:

       If you think American voters are frantically trying to find non-establishment politicians they think are not bought-and-paid-for, Europe is way ahead of us. The new mayor of Rome is 37-year-old Virginia Raggi who came out of nowhere as a "non-establishment" candidate and ran away with over two-thirds of the votes. Rome, the Eternal City, is to be congratulated for finally having a female Mayor, Ms. Raggi.

         Meanwhile, in the good ole USA, Dr. Jill Stein is running for President of the United States. Despite a media blackout, at least so far, she somehow has gotten $4%, 5%, and 9% of the votes in three recent national polls. Not that many Americans have ever heard of her but, apparently as they increasingly see her name on the ballots, they assume she is "non-establishment," an assumption that spawns votes.

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