America's Weak Link: The Media

The Media Elected Trump!!
{Posted/Updated: Sunday, November 13th}

     My mailbox on consecutive days this week included not one but two complete editions of Time Magazine. The first arrived on election day -- November 8th -- before the final presidential election results. That one told me what the mainstream media had told me every day for the past year, which was that Hillary Clinton would be the 45th President because the sexiest, misogynist, and totally unqualified Donald Trump, her only opponent, didn't stand a chance to get elected. Then the next day -- November 9th, after the final results were in -- the above issue of Time Magazine arrived in my mailbox. As you can see above, the front-cover title -- amazingly small to be sure -- was: "DONALD TRUMP: President-Elect, Nov. 9, 2016." The mainstream media is now immersed, as it will be for days to come, with all of its star "journalists" trying to explain away how biased, stupid and off-base their reporting has consistently been during the exhaustive two years of the almost interminable billion-dollar-plus election cycle. If nothing else, the result of the Trump triumph -- the most shocking in America's history -- has proved how incredibly biased the propaganda-fueled mainstream media has become. The prime victims of the consequences, unfortunately, are {1} Democracy; and {2} the vast majority of the American people who -- unlike the billionaires who own all of the mainstream U. S. media -- DO NOT have the money to purchase their democracy. Those two reasons explain why Trump and not Clinton is the President-elect of the world's superpower, the deeply divided United States of America. If you agree that the mainstream media has lied to you for the past two years about the presidential election, please note that I am merely an ordinary, democracy-loving American far removed from the mainstream media. Therefore, if you read on you will get a non-biased perspective that is not bought-and-paid-for because this one-trick-pony blog has never...and never will...make a penny from any outside source, including ad dollars, although its Alexa Rank ranking causes me, its only contributor, to get laughable offers.    

       My first edition of Time Magazine this week was dated November 14th but it arrived in my mailbox on November 8th -- election day -- before the election results were known. The cover -- above -- depicted Bill and Hillary Clinton holding up a huge sign declaring that "The End Is Near." They were not forecasting that the end of civilization was near. They were predicting the EASY Nov. 8th election that would SURELY result in Hillary's first presidential term following Barack Obama's two terms, George W. Bush's two terms and Bill Clinton's two terms. I mean, it was an easy prediction that Hillary's Republican opponent, Donald Trump, was totally unqualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief not to mention that he was also a blatant racist and an even greater misogynist. At least, that's what the Democrats as well as many Republicans were preaching. But mostly the extremely biased and incompetent U. S. media -- both print and electronic -- harped on those propaganda themes day-after-day and night-after-night for two solid years. And so, it was a deteriorated U. S. media, more than anything else, that elected a man, Mr. Trump, that I agree at least starts off as totally unqualified to be President of the United States. The media used a whole year of incessant pundit-driven anti-Trump propaganda to make sure that Trump didn't win the White House, naively believing that most Americans still trusted the media that was so well trusted from Ben Franklin's day until the last of the respected broadcast journalists, Walter Cronkite, departed CBS.  

          The billionaires who now own the entire mainstream U. S. media, such as Time, were and are extremely biased against Trump because they are not sure they can control him as they now control other politicians in Congress or those who aspire to be in the White House. Such control is easily maintained in a system in which billionaires, thanks to a 2010 Supreme Court ruling, can make unlimited political donations to go along with the long-established fact that 30,000 or so well-heeled and very effective lobbyists in Washington do the bidding of wealthy special interests, both domestic and foreign. That leaves out everyday Americans who are struggling but forgotten by politicians who are generally fully bought-and-paid-for. Everyday Americans can't afford to purchase politicians and many have considerable trouble feeding, clothing, sheltering and educating their children. Those everyday Americans recognize that Mr. Trump is unqualified to be President but millions of them believed the alternative -- Mrs. Clinton -- was even worse because they believe she is bought-and-paid-for by rich Americans and foreigners. The night before the election she was on stage with entertainers Jay-Z, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Bruce Springsteen, etc., all of whom are worth in excess of $300 million. She would have been much better served if she had appeared with everyday Americans who are worried about adequately feeding the one-in-five American children who go to bed hungry at night. 

           My first edition of Time this week not only flashed the above cover at me but inside -- published right before the election results -- Time's first major article was/is entitled "How the Media Got Smarter About Calling Elections" to praise the incredible accuracy of all the polls and all the media that assured all of us that Hillary Clinton would be the next President and that Donald Trump didn't stand a chance to get elected. Deeper inside this Time edition that was published the day of the election was the typical propaganda article by typical propagandist Joe Klein whose column was entitled: "Closing Argument: Why Hillary Clinton Is The Only Choice To Keep America Great." What Joe Klein meant, of course, was keeping America great for the rich but ignoring everyday Americans -- whites, blacks and browns -- who are trying so hard to care for their children, such as the one-in-five children who go to bed hungry at night in the richest nation in the history of the world. While the elite media's quest to keep Trump out of the White House back-fired, it may yet spawn continuing violence, and maybe a revolution, in a deeply divided America that is not so unlike the one that confronted President Abe Lincoln back in 1861 on the eve of the Civil War.

So thanks, Joe Klein, for nothing.

         This child sleeps outside although it's hard to go to sleep on the ground when your stomach is hurting because you are hungry. There are 30,000 or so highly paid lobbyists in Washington paid by rich people...rich Americans and rich foreigners...to make sure that Congress and the White House do their bidding, unmindful of over 17 million American children who have hunger problems and millions more beset with other poverty-related ills. Many of those lobbyists are former members of Congress accustomed to selling pieces of the U. S. democracy to the highest bidder. Yes, Mr. Klein, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President of the United States but the voters who managed to squeeze him into the White House are not the "irredeemable basket of deplorables and stupid, uneducated whites who support Trump." Most of the Americans who voted for Mr. Trump, and most who didn't vote at all, were searching in desperation for a political system that didn't just care for the richest Americans but also had at least a modicum of concern for a child that has to try to sleep on the ground even though his or her stomach hurts from acute hunger. 

           And that's why Time Magazine and the rest of the elitist U. S. media has emerged as the weakest link in the United States democracy, even weaker than the 30,000 or so decrepit lobbyists in Washington.

 The media, lobbyists and politicians are this child's enemies. 

 The person who gave her this bowl of food is her friend. 
 {Even if that person voted for Donald Trump!} 

 A family in Cuba cares for this happy little girl. 
Her Cuban family doesn't deserve to be embargoed. 
But pay Congressmen and you can embargo Cuba forever.

       England's news agency, the BBC, used this photo to illustrate a report that said, "A child starves to death every 10 seconds in a world in which an elitist minority stays flush with enormous wealth." Meanwhile, the U. S. media is absorbed with rich celebrities and political propagandists-pundits as opposed to hiring and cultivating print reporters and broadcast journalists. And that's precisely why Americans don't understand how Mr. Trump got elected President or why the BBC -- which does have decent print reporters and unbiased broadcast journalists -- makes such statements as the one inside the quotation marks above. The grandmother shown here is cutting up wild plants or weeds to feed her grand-daughter. The child's mother had starved to death while using the last bit of her food to keep the precious little child alive.

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U.S.-Cuba Detente Ends

Up to Trump to Revive It!!

      Yesterday -- Nov. 10-2016 -- the Miami Herald used the above photo to highlight a major article heralding the startling election of Donald Trump as the next U. S. President, which Miami stalwarts believe will reverse all of President Obama's rapprochements with Cuba and resurrect the Cold War...or possibly a Hot War. The photo is courtesy of Ramon Espinosa/AP and the article was written by Nora Gamez Torres and fronted by the headline "Cloud of Uncertainty." The photo above, deemed appropriate, shows tourists at Revolutionary Square in Havana listening to a guide as they stand next to a Cold War anti-aircraft missile.

     The Miami Herald article stressed the comments of Mauricio Claver-Carone, one of Washington's most powerful and most visceral leaders of America's lucrative Anti-Castro Cottage Industry. Claver-Carone is the Director of the rich "U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC," has his own visceral anti-Castro nationally broadcast radio show, and his own visceral anti-Castro "Capital Hill Cubans" blog. He told the Miami Herald yesterday, "As for President-elect Trump, his Cuban-American supporters will surely hold him accountable to reverse Obama's executive orders." Claver-Carone used the Herald article and his other venues to celebrate the easy reelections Tuesday of Miami's four visceral anti-Castro members of the U. S. Congress -- Senator Marco Rubio and Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo. Claver-Carone, of course, never has to explain why Miami's political system only sends visceral anti-revolutionary Cuban-Americans to Congress even though most Cuban-Americans in Miami favor Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. And Claver-Carone never has to explain why he so viscerally promotes an American Cuban policy that the rest of the world so sanely disagrees with by a 191-to-0 plurality. Of course, as long as the Anti-Castro Cottage Industry remains so immensely lucrative and revengeful for powerful patrons like Claver-Carone, there will always be enough politicians either in Congress and/or the White House to support the dastardly Cuban policy he espouses but the entire world in unanimity opposes.

       While the Miami Herald will forever remain an integral part of the Anti-Castro Cottage Industry, the largest and best newspaper in Florida is the Tampa Bay Times. It is not a supporter of the anti-American Cold War attitudes regarding Cuba. A major editorial in the Tampa Bay Times yesterday blared this headline: "EDITORIAL: DON'T REVERSE COURSE ON CUBA." The Editorial cogently suggested: "The incoming Trump administration should send an early sign to Cuba that there is no interest in resurrecting the Cold War." Like the vast majority of democracy-lovers in the U. S. and around the world, the editorial writers at the Tampa Bay Times worry that the Republican President-elect Trump aligned with both chambers of Congress that are dominated by Republicans can...and might...defy the rest of the world and return America's Cuban policy to a Cold War or even a Hot War posture that Cuba would certainly lose but not without a fight.

      After the election of Donald Trump as the next U. S. President, Cuba's small and lightly armed military forces have been put on alert and are undergoing training exercises across the island. A determined decision by a Republican Commander-in-Chief in the U. S. White House could easily wipe out Cuba's army...but not without a revolutionary or Bay of Pigs-type resistance that would likely have world-wide moral support and likely require provoking Cuba into something that could be deemed a pretext -- such as the USS Maine blowing up in Havana Harbor to provide the pretext for the Spanish-American War in 1898 or the Brothers to the Rescue planes from Miami inducing a Cuban reaction that provided the pretext for the Helms-Burton Act that ended President Clinton's plans to normalize relations with Cuba and forced him to sign the bill that still direly harms Cubans on the island while massively enriching and empowering a special contingent of rich and powerful anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in the United States.

      This photo shows President Bill Clinton signing Helms-Burton into law on March 12, 1996, shortly after Cuba shot down two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes out of Miami that it says was taunting Cuba with overflights. Prior to that pretext, Clinton was striving to normalize relations with Cuba but till this day Helms-Burton codifies the most anti-Cuban aspects of America's Cuban policy, the precise policy that the nations of the world strongly oppose by a 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations. At this signing ceremony -- and waiting for their souvenir pens as they look over President Clinton's right shoulder -- are Cuban-American Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey and Havana-born Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Miami. Both Menendez and Ros-Lehtinen remain Helms-Burton stalwarts in the U. S. Congress today.

       The Bush dynasty, more so than such anti-Cuban measures as President Clinton in 1991 being induced to sign Helms-Burton, is responsible for a handful of anti-Castro zealots being able to dictate America's Cuban policy in the U. S. Congress regardless of whether there is a Republican or Democrat in the White House. The above photo shows President George H. W. Bush handing a souvenir pen to Miami's Havana-born U. S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She has been an unchallenged member of Congress since 1989 when Jeb Bush, on his way to two terms as Florida's governor, was her Campaign Manager.

        Born in Miami in 1966, Kathy Castor has represented Tampa Bay in the U. S. Congress since 2007. On behalf of democracy, the American people, the citizens and business people of Tampa Bay, and the majority of Cubans and Cuban-Americans, Congresswoman Kathy Castor has bravely and doggedly used her decade in the U. S. Congress trying to promote normal relations between America and the nearby island of Cuba.

       But the saneness of Kathy Castor's diligent work in the U. S. Congress to help Americans, Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and her Tampa Bay constituents has mostly been unfruitful. That's because America's Cuban policy, since 1898 and especially since 1952, has primarily been dictated not by democracy but by a few right-wing, self-serving thugs. And that dichotomy should shine even brighter spotlights on the sheer decency of democracy-loving people like Congresswoman Castor AND ON that 191-to-0 vote in the UN.

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Cuba Reacts to Trump

With Acute Uneasiness!!

          The election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States has shocked the entire world, and that especially includes the island of Cuba. Trump is a Republican and he will have a Republican Congress to support many of his policies -- including Trump's vow, at least when he was campaigning in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, that he would "reverse" all of President Obama's historic overtures to Cuba and even put Cuba back on the debilitating Sponsors of Terrorism list. President Obama's many positives related to Cuba bypassed the Republican Congress and were simply executed via brave, astute and decent Executive Actions. The easiest thing for an incoming President, such as Mr. Trump, to do is to devise Executive Actions that would erase those of his predecessor. In regards to Cuba, that is what President Trump might do in keeping the promises he self-servingly made in Miami's Little Havana.

       Within minutes after the early Wednesday confirmation that Trump would be the next U. S. President, Cuba was writing an announcement in its state newspaper, Granma, that it was going on alert with military exercises across the island. Considering the meager strength of the Cuban military compared to superpower America's, many scoff at the announcement but not those who remember Cuba's do-or-die and victorious Revolutionary War in the 1950s or its do-or-die defense at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 or its pugnacious survival even against the U. S. embargo first imposed in 1962 and still existing to this day.

      The best and fairest international journalist reporting on Cuba is Sarah Marsh of London-based Reuters. Her article after the Trump victory revealed that everyday Cubans support the government taking a military tone in reaction to the impending Trump presidency. A 39-year-old Cuban engineer, Tomas Gonzalez, told Sarah Marsh: "We'll brace to what is coming. With Trump, I reckon we are headed back to the era of George Bush." Since 1952 everyday Cubans are well aware that every Republican administration in the U. S., especially the three Bush presidential terms and the Bush dynasty's anti-Cuban assaults dating all the way back to George H. W. Bush in the 1950s have forced Cuba into a "defensive posture." Sarah Marsh reveals that with the Republican Trump replacing Mr. Obama, Cuba is returning to a warlike footing.

       In an earlier recent Reuters article Sarah Marsh used the above photo to report that everyday Cubans, shown installing a Fidel Castro montage on his 90th birthday, will always support the Castro legacy because of his revolutionary fervor on behalf of a sovereign Cuba. Meanwhile, the U. S. media is obligated to inform the American people that all Cubans on the island hate Castro and agree with the Republicans, the CIA and the Cuban-exiles in Miami's Little Havana who have vowed to overthrow the revolution and tried a record number of times to assassinate Castro. While there are a small number of anti-Fidel dissidents on the island, and a larger number of U.S.-backed dissidents, the majority of Cubans support the revolution and very much fear a Republican President, like Donald Trump, in the United States.

      This is the Cuban embassy in Washington, newly opened for the first time since 1961 thanks to President Obama's Executive Orders, with the corresponding U. S. embassy in Havana reopening shortly after the historic ceremony in Washington made this building a busy embassy. Beyond officially establishing diplomatic relations, President Obama has greatly eased trade restrictions related to Cuba as well as making it easier for more Americans to actually visit the island, including U. S. traffic on the first cruise ships and commercial airplane flights allowed to dock or land in Cuba for the first time since 1962.

      A few days ago -- on Oct. 26-2016 -- Samantha Power, the U. S. Representative to the UN, made this speech explaining why, for the first time, the U. S. refused to support its own Congressionally mandated Cuban embargo, in effect since 1962. Ms. Power used one sentence to say that the U. S. "still had differences" with Cuba but she used many sentences to applaud Cuba, citing such examples as Cuba's emphasis on free and good educational and health opportunities for its people; Cuba's empowerment of women; Cuba's world-class low infant mortality rate; and Cuba's eagerness and willingness to rush to the aid of people threatened with disasters such as the Ebola crisis in Africa or natural calamities in Haiti. If interested, you can go online and study the entire transcript or video of Samantha Power's UN speech on Oct. 26th. When the U. S. refused to support its own embargo against Cuba, the international vote announced to the world was 191-to-0 against the embargo, the glaring worldwide unanimity that the U. S. Congress and a few hardliners in Miami's Little Havana insist that the U. S. democracy totally dismiss.  

       As a billionaire businessman Donald Trump opposed the embargo and other odious aspects of America's right-wing Cuban policy. But while seeking Florida's often pivotal 29 electoral votes, Trump went to Little Havana in Miami and promised to "reverse" President Obama's overtures to Cuba and to "return" Cuba to the debilitating Sponsors of Terrorism list. After his cowardly, condescending promises in Little Havana, the above photo showed some powerful pro-Trump supporters demonstrating on Little Havana's famed 8th Street, Calle Ocho. All that is interesting because the majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami support Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the island. It is also interesting to note that Miami since 1989 only sends incumbents like Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart, Rubio, and Curbelo -- all anti-Castro zealots -- to the U.S. Congress -- apparently confirming that the majority of Cuban-Americans who happen to be moderates with concern for Cubans on the island and the 191-to-0 UN vote are not eligible or represented.

In March President Obama visited Cuba.

      On his historic trip to Cuba, as shown by this photo and quotation, President Obama went on national television in Cuba and told the Cuban people: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." UNFORTUNATELY, what the decent President Obama meant was that Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States UNLESS there is a Republican Commander-in-Chief and also a Republican-dominated Congress. AND UNFORTUNATELY, BEGINNING ON JANUARY 20-2017 THE UNITED STATES ONCE AGAIN WILL HAVE BOTH A REPUBLICAN COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AND A REPUBLICAN-DOMINATED CONGRESS.

Therefore, within minutes of Wednesday morning's confirmation that Republican Donald Trump had been elected the next President of the United States, Cuba's state newspaper was preparing an announcement telling its people that the Cuban military was being put on alert and military exercises would commence.

Meanwhile, everyday Cubans cherish President Obama's efforts to normalize Cuban relations on friendly terms that would benefit Americans, Cubans, and the world. The above photo was taken by Ramon Espinosa for the Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 9th-2016, the morning Cubans learned Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States. The photo shows Cuban actor Armando Ricart fixing breakfast in his Havana home. Note the huge Cuban flag on the left and the equally huge American flag on the right. They reveal Armando's hope for friendly U. S. relations. With President Obama about to be replaced by a Republican Commander-in-Chief, Armando's hopes are not as realistic as they were prior to Wednesday.

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Cuba and PRESIDENT TRUMP

What It Means for Cuba?

Donald Trump: 45th U. S. President!!

       On this trip to Miami, long-shot presidential contender Donald Trump shamefully stood before a huge Brigade 2506 poster and promised anti-Castro zealots that, as President, he would turn back all of President Obama's positive efforts to normalize relations with Cuba and that he would put Cuba back on the Sponsors of Terrorism list, an act that alone would induce Cuba to not cooperate with any normalization process. Brigade 2506 was the CIA-backed Cuban-American unit that attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961, solidifying the Castro legend because Fidel raced to the frontlines and led the startlingly successful defense. Did Trump actually mean what he said in Miami in front of that Brigade 2506 banner? Maybe.

        Prior to this capitulation to hardliners in Miami, Donald Trump the big businessman had said, "Fifty years of a failed policy regarding Cuba is fifty years too much." As President and as still an unabashed businessman, Trump might revert back to that saner position instead of the self-serving comments in Miami. He knows many, many U. S. businesses want to cut deals related to Cuba -- with U. S. cruise lines, airlines and others already involved. Also Trump as President will hopefully not ignore polls that show even most Cuban-Americans favor closer ties with Cuba and the recent UN vote reveals worldwide unanimity -- 191-to-0 -- against the U. S. embargo of Cuba that has sullied the images of the U. S. and democracy since 1962.

   Donald Trump's pro-Brigade 2506 speech in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami may or may not define his Cuban policy as the most improbable President in U. S. history. We'll have to wait and see, but Cubans on the island would have preferred a 3rd Obama-like term that Hillary Clinton would have represented. 

       More than any other person, Sean Hannity -- the Fox News anchor and the Radio Talk Show superstar -- has shocked the world by putting Donald Trump in the White House as of January 20, 2017. Neither I nor any other American, almost without exception, believed Hannity could do it. Tired of the extreme anti-Trump bias from all other U. S. broadcast networks and all major U. S. newspapers, for the last few weeks I have, for the first time, watched Hannity on Fox. I smiled...actually laughed...the other night when I watched Hannity insist that Trump would be "the next President of the United States and I will tell you why." He proceeded to tell us, as I continued to laugh. He said, "The extremely biased U. S. media...including CNN that I call the Clinton News Network...will end up putting Donald in the White House. Forget the pundits. Forget the polls. Forget all the talk about Hillary getting almost all the black votes, almost all the Latino votes, and almost all the female votes. When the biased media pilloried Trump supporters as being nothing but ignorant, uneducated, biased white men, I told Donald myself that 'I now know you will shock the world by getting elected President of the United States.' I started out as a construction worker but I have made millions on talk radio and as a top Fox anchor the last 21 years. I said, 'Mr. Trump, just save me a big role in your administration.'"

Yes!!!

I think Sean Hannity put Donald Trump in the White House.

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Election Day USA

Cuba and the World Watches!!

          Today -- NOVEMBER 8TH, 2016 -- is election day in the United States of America. The money-crazed, almost unending presidential election process in the world's greatest and strongest democracy has not only dragged on-and-on month-after-month but also year-after-year. That, of course, mindlessly punishes Americans as the great political cartoonist Dave Chappatte so aptly illustrates with the above gem. The endless election cycle, unique to America, allows more time for powerful entities -- including the mainstream U. S. media -- to partake in the financial windfalls by raking in ungodly amounts of political ad dollars. The mindless election process in the U. S. also...even more sadly...reflects the deleterious impact of the once sacrosanct Supreme Court, which in 2010, many democracy-lovers believe, pounded a huge nail in democracy's coffin when it ruled that multi-billionaires could make unlimited political donations, essentially allowing 20 or so multi-billionaires to purchase the basic tenets of the U. S. democracy, largely demeaning the voting power of masses of individual, non-rich Americans. That money-crazed effect has been exacerbated by a vast deterioration of the mainstream U. S. media, which has evolved more into powerful propaganda machines instead of the providers of unbiased news coverage. So, go back to the top and re-study Dave Chappatte's brilliant political cartoon that defines the reaction of most Americans helplessly fed-up with their money-crazed political system and the media propaganda machines that, incredibly, merely pretend to be unbiased news gathering sources. The combination of a money-dominated election and a propaganda-based media will end up with an elected President tonight but later it might evolve into violence or even some form of a revolution, which this democracy does not deserve.

         The almost endless money-crazed race to the White House finally ends today and will elect as President of the United States either Hillary Clinton, from the extremely flawed and many-believe corrupt Clinton dynasty, or Donald Trump, the extremely flawed and totally unqualified billionaire businessman. Never before have the two top presidential contenders been so unpopular, a fact that displays to the world the fallibility of a two-party political system in which, this time more than ever before, both candidates are considered to be bought-and-paid-for, although less so for Trump, which is a big reason he will lose.

      A two-party political system that produces two extremely UNPOPULAR presidential candidates is surely in dire need of a process that gives American voters more than the choice of the lesser of two evils.

       Graphics such as this -- depicting Clinton and Trump as "the least popular candidates of all time." -- are surely not ringing endorsements for the U. S. democracy, which for over two centuries was surely the greatest form of government ever devised but now one that is becoming fragile and very vulnerable.

           And now, With all that being said, later tonight the Republican Donald Trump will project a glum, downtrodden countenance while the Democrat Hillary Clinton will exude a broad and all-encompassing smile. Trump, the unqualified businessman, will surprise many people with how many votes he actually gets because he at least represents change. But the deeply flawed Clinton will easily stroll the electoral path to a decisive victory. As the 2000 election revealed when Al Gore got more popular votes but George W. Bush won with the most electoral votes, the U. S. democracy -- the world's greatest -- is far from perfect, a fact made indelible in the eyes of many by a two-party bought-and-paid-for system and a mainstream media that has turned into propaganda machines instead of unbiased news gathering organizations.

      When all is said and done sometime tonight, Hillary Clinton will be celebrating her victory as the newly elected President of the United States, instantaneously making her the most powerful person in the world, even more omnipotent than the lame-duck, out-going, two-term President, Mr. Obama, that she will replace.

      And so, later tonight Hillary Clinton will make history as the first female President of the United States. It is, of course, time that the U. S. democracy followed democracies like England, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc., etc., in electing a female President. Women tend to be less corrupt, more decent and less war-mongering than males. Yet, the first U. S. female President, Mrs. Clinton, will take over the White House with unique baggage relating to the Clinton dynasty's well-earned reputation for corruption -- dating back to the Whitewater and Rose Law Firm scandals as the political kingpins, Hillary and Governor Bill, in Arkansas decades ago and continuing right up to the present moment, after two White House terms, with unending controversies related to the Clinton Foundation's alleged and notorious solicitations of untold millions of pay-for-play dollars from Wall Street and even foreign billionaires. Thus, more Clinton history beginning in the White House on January 20th, 2017 might well be made in fighting off continuous corruption charges fueled by endless streams of more revelations.

       As the newly elected U. S. President later tonight, Hillary Clinton's euphoria may well be short-lived. That is not wishful or hopeful thinking. For the sake of America and democracy, I wish her well. I was a lifelong Republican until the Bush dynasty's alliance with the Batistianos and Mafiosi related to Cuba ended my Republicanism for good. Yet, I believe what will now be a third term in the White House for the Clinton dynasty may be as devastating for the U. S. democracy as the three terms of the Bush dynasty, with more to come if Jeb can resurrect his political career or if his dangerously ambitious son George P. down in Texas keeps lassoing tons of political dollars from right-wing billionaires who now have, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling and a biased media, clearance to purchase even the cherished U. S. presidency. Yet, like millions of other democracy-loving Americans, I was left during this elongated presidential cycle to support the lesser of what I believe to be two evils -- Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump. Mrs. Clinton will at least endeavor to continue the sane, brave, and decent overtures President Obama has made in regards to Cuba. Even as the 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations revealed that NO NATION IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, even including the United States itself, supported the vile, decades-old American Cuban policy, Trump and his running mate Mike Pence traipsed to Little Havana in Miami to assure a handful of still-revengeful anti-Castro Cuban-Americans that, once in the White House, they would "turn back" all of Obama's positive Cuban overtures and "return" Cuba to the State Department's "Sponsors of Terrorism" list, supposedly only to appease a few revengeful zealots fully anxious to hurt millions of innocent Cubans to avenge their losses to the Cuban Revolution. Rogues like Trump and Pence, flagrantly vowing to ignore the unanimity of world opinion not to mention the opinions of most Americans and most Cuban-Americans, do not deserve to be near the White House. My hope, as a democracy-loving American, is that President Hillary Clinton will surprise us all and end up proving she indeed deserves to the first female President of the United States.

 And speaking of Cuba: 

         I like this photo taken by Alberto N. Jones and used courtesy of Havana Times.org. It shows a happy Cuban lady walking down the main, sparsely traveled highway running down the heart of Playa Guardalavaca in Banes, Holguin Province, Cuba. When I was in Cuba, I remember this street and other happy Cubans who don't have many expensive material things but seem to make the most of being happy, carefree and resilient. The Revolution hasn't made them wealthy, certainly not with the half-century-old U. S. embargo, but my observances on the island educated me to the values of almost crime-free and drug-free lifestyles as well as a population blessed with totally free essentials such as health care and college educations along with free food and shelter if needed. So, this happy, friendly Cuban resonates with me.

And by the way: 

       Yesterday -- Nov. 7, 2016 -- Janet Reno died in Miami at age 78. She was the first female Attorney General of the United States, serving in that capacity from 1993 till 2001 for President Bill Clinton. In 1994 she made a controversial decision to end a congressional investigation into the Clinton Whitewater Scandal dating back to Clinton's two terms as Governor of Arkansas.

       But Janet Reno is most remembered for this iconic photo that shows a federal officer, under Reno's orders, rescuing 6-year-old Cuban Elian Gonzalez from Miami and Fort Lauderdale anti-Castro zealots and Cuban-American politicians. Elian was returned to his father and they flew to Cuba in April of 2000.

        When the 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez returned to Cuba, it was a major victory for the island's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro.

         Elian, shown here on the right with one of his close friends, grew up happy, well educated and a Castro disciple in Cuba.

      Elian and his father in Cuba. Elian's mother drowned in the Florida Straits after putting the 6-year-old Elian on an inner- tube, which saved him till he was rescued near shore by fishermen.

Elian with his fiancee Ilianet Escano.

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