Cuba, Stones, and Glass Houses

A Hypocritical Foray!

        In the last two days, these images were shown worldwide in both video-audio-and-photo fashion Online and on Television. It is a reminder that those who live in expensive glass houses should not throw rocks at their neighbor's poorer home. The montage above registered a now-famous event that occurred in the USA This week -- April 10, 2017 -- on America's most-famed airline -- United. The fully loaded airplane was about to take off when United realized it was over-booked and it needed four of the seats for United personnel to fly to another destination. When it couldn't clear those four seats, three security agents boarded the plane and randomly ordered the passenger depicted above to leave the plane and take a later flight. He refused. When pressured, he shouted, "I'm a doctor! I must get to Louisville for my patients!" When he was being forced from his seat he continued to scream and tried desperately to grab on to anything that would prevent his removal from the seat he had paid for. He was eventually pulled from the seat, screaming and moaning, and pulled forcefully down the aisle in view of the other passengers. The two photos above on the right side were taken after the doctor in total shock somehow returned to the plane and raced up and down the aisle incoherently but very clearly shouting, "I gotta go home...I gotta go home...they gonna kill me...they gonna kill me!" As he zombie-like ran up and down the aisle, the doctor's pants were low and exposed some of his lower body. His wife was one of the alarmed passengers.

       In this Smart Phone era, the incident on the United plane was recorded by outraged passengers, including the lady above. It was not only taped for posterity and world-wide exposure, but onlookers like this dumb-founded woman shouted their outrage at the agents.

   United Airlines' CEO Oscar Munoz exacerbated the issue and further infuriated people around the world when his first official statement blamed, at least partially, the bloody and mauled victim.

              In this Twitter-era, tweets like the one above became ubiquitous within the first hour after images like the ones above were flashed around the world -- complete with video, screaming audio and...blood.

      And speaking of throwing stones at vulnerable targets from glass houses, U. S. taxpayers since the early 1980s have lavishly funded...literally with hundreds of millions of dollars...Radio-TV Marti in Miami. The radio unit started in 1983, the TV united in 1990. It is nothing more and nothing less than an anti-Castro, counter-revolutionary propaganda outfit aimed at Cuba but mostly it simply preaches, at massive expense decade after decade, to the choir in South Florida. That fact is well known and was revealed many years ago by ABC-TV News with a still-famous report entitled "The Broadcast to Nowhere" because it is easily blocked or jammed by Cuba. Since then, as your Google search would validate, other reputable articles have noted the laughable quality of the broadcasts because many of the participants are not broadcasters although some of the salaries would indicate they are top-of-the-line journalists. Respected and unbiased Cuban expert Tracey Eaton, now also a Professor in Florida, documented on his Along the Malecon blog the actual salaries and payments to vendors and others that might anger even the most timid U. S. taxpayer, with many of the payments listing the amounts but not who got them. While Radio-TV Marti throws a continuous barrage of stones at any-and-everything attached to Revolutionary Cuba, don't expect to ever hear it broadcast a criticism of Cuba's Batista-Mafia dictatorship or, since 1959, of the remnants of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship that regrouped in South Florida. And don't expect American taxpayers to have the courage to complain about the hundreds of millions of their dollars devoted to Radio-TV Marti and, of course, the mainstream U. S. media for the most part does not have the courage or integrity to even report the debacle. But England's BBC and other braver sources do. In fact, the BBC also broadcast internationally a report that the George W. Bush presidency was paying tax dollars to journalists at so-called reputable media such as the Miami Herald to produce and publish anti-Cuban articles. That BBC report, in case you'd like to check, was broadcast on Sept. 8-2006 and entitled "U. S. Paid Anti-Cuba Journalists." Even the U. S. media, including the Miami Herald, was forced to react to that farce, which was more a slap at democracy than Cuba. Yet, if the subject is Cuba, Americans are not supposed to complain...not even when their tax dollars go to lavishly fund Radio-TV Marti or to pay-off so-called legitimate journalists to throw stones at Cuba as if NO ONE in Miami or Washington lives in a glass house.

        And speaking of Radio-TV Marti, at one point Marti, backed by massive tax dollars, funded an expensive airplane to fly around Cuba to beam its propaganda signals at the island in an attempt to defeat Cuba's success in rather easily blocking the broadcasts. A few of Washington's braver and more decent officials, feeling sorry for the taxpayers and for America's mounting reputation as a propaganda-dispenser, explained -- to no avail -- that even if a broadcast or two got through to the people on the island, they would be too smart to believe what Miami said as opposed to what they were seeing daily in Cuba.

      Cuba provides passports for Yoani Sanchez, the island's most famed anti-Castro and counter-revolutionary dissident, to fly around the world and then return to Cuba. Sanchez, as shown above, stopped off in Miami to utilize Radio-TV Marti to broadcast her anti-Castro vibes...at least to the choir.

      And of course, as Cuba's most famed anti-Castro/counter revolutionary zealot, Yoani Sanchez was sure to be wined, dined and whatever at the Batistiano-dominated U. S. Congress. She is shown above being flanked by Cuban-American U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez. By the time she arrived in Miami and Washington, Sanchez was already the world's most famous anti-Cuban blogger. Upon her return to Cuba, she also announced that she had the wherewithal to hire additional workers and start her own well-funded digital newspaper online, which she did.

      The founder of Radio-TV Marti, America's most powerful anti-Castro media outlet, and the founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, America's most powerful anti-Castro political organization, was Jorge Mas Canosa. He is shown above in his 2nd Lt.'s uniform after being sent to Fort Benning in Georgia, along with dozens of other anti-Castro Cubans, right after they fled the victorious Cuban Revolution at the start of 1959. Fort Benning was where the then-secretive Army of the Americas trained soldiers from U.S.-friendly dictatorships -- Batista's in Cuba, Somoza's in Nicaragua, Trujillo's in the Dominican Republic, etc. -- and then sent them back to defend those dictatorships. Beginning in 1959 anti-Castro Cubans were sent to Fort Benning to train in what the above caption calls the "Special Brigade 2506" to prepare to attack and recapture Cuba. That air, land, and sea attack -- known to history as the Bay of Pigs -- occurred in April of 1961 but for a second time Fidel Castro's rebels shocked the world with a startling victory, again humiliating the U. S. and further enhancing Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution in the annals of history.

        After the Bay of Pigs victory solidified Fidel Castro's revolutionary rule in Cuba, it also entrenched the most anti-Castro Cuban zealots in South Florida where, essentially, their new capital became and remains to this day the Little Havana section of Miami. Probably the three most famous-infamous of the Miami Cubans were Jorge Mas Canosa, Luis Posada Carriles, and Orlando Bosch. You are welcome to Google their bios. The photo above, as well as the caption with it, is courtesy of www.LatinAmericanStudies.org and it shows Mas Canosa in 1978 with his .357 magnum pistol.

       After surviving what history records as 634 or so assassination attempts, Fidel Castro died of natural causes at age 90 in Havana on Nov. 25th, 2016. It's rather unlikely that 634 number will ever be broken.

       After Fidel Castro raced to the front-lines to lead the victory at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the CIA employed many of the most zealous anti-Castro Cubans as well as anti-Castro Mafia hit-man in repeated attempts to kill him. Reputable documentaries as well as The Guinness Book of World Records list the failed assassination attempts against Castro as "634." While CIA operatives such as Posada were unsuccessful in killing Castro, they were successful in massive and repeated terrorist acts against innocent Cubans and against foreign tourists in terror-targeted Cuban hotels. 

        Posada and Bosch reign as the two most famed Cuban terrorists and both men bragged openly about such exploits for many decades. Bosch received a highly controversial pardon after it was requested by Jeb Bush and granted by his father President George H. W. Bush, and Bosch lived out his long life as a celebrated free man in Miami. Posada, after alleged and publicized help from Miami members of the U. S. Congress, was freed from a Panamanian prison after he had been sentenced for an assassination plot against Castro in that country. Today Posada is still a celebrated citizen of Miami. The graphic above depicts the terrorist bombing of the child-laden Cuban civilian airplane -- Cubana Flight 455 -- on Oct. 6, 1976 that killed all 76 on board. Although declassified U. S. documents reveal the names of the Cubans involved, such things have gone unpunished even as...people in glass houses throw stones at Cuba.

        The victims of Cubana Flight 455 are to this day honored with memorials such as the one above not only in Cuba but elsewhere across the Caribbean and Latin America.

        And to this day, countries in the Caribbean and Latin American -- such as Guyana above -- still call "for justice" concerning Cubana Flight 455.

Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.

      The whole dynamic of U.S.-Cuban relations changed drastically when Ronald Reagan was elected U. S. President in 1980. The Reagan-Bush administration quickly anointed Jorge Mas Canosa leader of the Cubans-in-Exile because he was judged to be the most fervent and smartest of the anti-Castro Cubans who already enjoyed vast and well-funded anti-Castro advantages. But -- as detailed by the well-respected Julia E. Sweig in her unchallenged and brilliant book "What Everyone Needs to Know About Cuba" -- Mas Canosa was advised, apparently by his long-time Bush allies, to study AIPAC -- the ultra-powerful Israeli political superpower in the U. S. -- and then replicate it on behalf of the Cuban exiles. Mas Canosa followed that sage advice and created the Cuban American National Foundation. What followed were anti-Castro/pro Cuban-exile laws easily enacted in the U. S. Congress -- such as the Torricelli Bill, Helms-Burton Act, Wet Foot-Dry Foot, Radio-TV Marti, etc., etc., etc. Not surprisingly, Mas Canosa became a billionaire with his massive Mastec company in Miami and the United States of America was/is saddled with a Cuban policy that currently has an astounding 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations.

       The wealthy Bush political dynasty, since the 1950s when declassified U. S. documents confirm George H. W. Bush's CIA connections to anti-Cuban projects, has been primary supporters of anti-Castro zealots like Jorge Mas Canosa. That alliance crystallized in 1976 when GHW Bush was CIA Director and became more indelible during his two terms as Vice-President under Reagan, his one-term as President, his son George W. Bush's two terms as President and his youngest son Jeb Bush's two terms as Governor of Florida. Mas Canosa died in 1997 at age 58 of lung cancer and other illnesses but there are many major edifices in Miami that honor him today and he has never been challenged, thanks partly to his Bush connections, as the all-time most powerful Cuban in the United States.

       While all Republicans in Congress and in the White House bowed to Jorge Mas Canosa, even Democrat presidents such as Bill Clinton were also no match for Mas Canosa when it came to shaping America's Cuban policy.

      At the start of 1996 U. S. President Bill Clinton became the second Democrat U. S. president to famously announce to his staff that he was going to normalize relations with Cuba. The first was President John Kennedy in November of 1963 just days before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22-1963. President Clinton had the same idea in 1996, believing he had the power to do so. But the photo above shows President Clinton on March 12, 1996 very reluctantly signing the Helms Burton Act into law. Helms Burton to this very day is intended to "eviscerate" Cuba because it was written -- supposedly by high-powered lawyers funded by Mas Canosa and his associates -- in such a manner that only Congress can change it, meaning that even the very decent Democrat President, Barack Obama, while he could write positive Executive Orders related to Cuba, could not change Helms-Burton. In the photo above, the big man standing just to the right of President Clinton is Cuban-American anti-Castro zealot Robert Menendez, the U. S. Senator from New Jersey. The lady in red looking over President Clinton's shoulder is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who is an anti-Castro extremist born in Havana but has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager as a stepping stone to his becoming Florida's two-term anti-Castro governor.

      Please study the photo and the caption above. Yes, the Helms-Burton Act from 1996 till today was/is intended to "asphyxiate" Cuba just like a vast array of other U. S. laws as well as assassination attempts, military attacks, terrorist acts, etc., have tried to do. Have you studied the above photo? Look at President Clinton's expression right after he very reluctantly signed Helms-Burton into law. President Clinton is glancing up at Robert Menendez, the ultra-powerful and entrenched anti-Castro Cuban-American U. S. Senator from New Jersey. A few days ago -- in this year of 2017 --the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a very serious corruption case against Senator Menendez and his close friend, a well-known millionaire in Miami, can go forward.

But remember...

          ..........this particular essay is about people living in glass houses {or mansions} and throwing stones at poor little, supposedly helpless Cuba. So, I'll use Cristina Escobar as the coda to this story. Cristina is Cuba's bold, beautiful and brilliant broadcast journalist. She anchors news programs in Cuba in Spanish and also anchors a regional program in English. Did I say she's brilliant? Oh, yes, and she is. She did her University of Havana thesis on predicting...quite accurately...what the Obama effect would be on Cuba. She is still in her 20s -- very Cuban and quite opinionated in her expert analysis of U.S.-Cuban history and current relations. She says: "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the United States than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." She means it and...she really is brilliant.

       As a Cuban journalist, Cristina Escobar has made trips to California, Washington, Alabama, etc. The photo above captured her when she made history as the first Cuban journalist to ask questions at a White House news conference, and she asked President Obama's chief spokesman Josh Earnest six quite pertinent questions, such as, "Will Cuban regime-change programs continue even amidst Obama's detente?" When I learned respected journalist Tracey Eaton was going to Cuba to get video interviews, I advised him to be sure to interview the brilliant, out-spoken and most influential Cuban broadcast journalist. He did and two of those videos are on YouTube, one in Spanish but one with English translations on the screen. She says interesting things such as, "I don't want the U. S. to bring me democracy. That is a project for Cubans on the island." She also on those videos talks about undemocratic atrocities aimed at her island, such as "Helms-Burton." 

     This photo shows Cristina Escobar interviewing Ricardo Alarcon, the famed Cuban revolutionary, diplomat, politician, and historian. The photo was used by the University of Alabama newspaper -- The Crimson Tide -- to promote Cristina's speaking engagement on the Tuscaloosa campus. During both serious and jovial intervals, she was...that adjective again...BRILLIANT. Robert Olin, the Dean of the University of Alabama's Arts and Sciences Department, said, "Cristina is essentially the Katie Couric of Cuba." In other words, Robert Olin at the University of Alabama thinks Katie Couric is brilliant too.

*&***********************&*

  

Cuba and Vietnam

So Similar, So Different!
{Monday, April 10th, 2017}

       Often on this Cubaninsider blog I've excoriated America's television networks, including CNN, for evolving primarily into propaganda machines instead of the responsible news outlets they certainly have the resources and wherewithal to be. Networks like MSNBC, for example, spend 24 hours-a-day with anchors such as O'Donnell, Maddow, and Hayes trying desperately to destroy the Trump presidency instead of even making an effort to deliver the news. During daytime and prime-time hours with anchors such as Harlow, Burnett, Cooper, Lemon, etc., CNN is no better than MSNBC. Yet, CNN is still the network to watch, at least between 3:00 A. M. and 6:00 A. M. That's when CNN actually covers the news with a brilliant array of reporters, such as the world's best war correspondent Arwa Damon. Last weekend -- Saturday, April 8th, 2017 -- CNN exposed Arwa's importance and brilliance in prime-time with her one-hour documentary entitled "Return to Mosul." It was...is...a brilliant example of broadcast journalism at its finest.

       For years Arwa Damon has reported for CNN from the most dangerous war zones in the world, wars that are drastically significant to the U. S. and other powers who routinely provide ultra-modern weapons to foreign elements that fight seemingly unending proxy wars, such as the Civil War in Syria that, in recent years, has killed about a half-million civilians and flooded many countries with frightened refugees. For the most part, CNN only airs Arwa's superb and important reports only in the 3-to-6-AM period, otherwise mocking broadcast journalism with endless streams of propaganda pundits. But Arwa's documentary "Return to Mosul" in prime-time Saturday was a fantastic exception for American broadcast journalism.

      The image above illustrated one of the many emotional segments in "Return to Mosul" for Arwa Damon and her viewers. She has spent so much time reporting from ongoing war-torn hellholes like Mosul in Iraq that she speaks the native languages fluently. Beyond that, she has bonded with the civilians who, as always, suffer the most from such ungodly conflicts. The newly born Mosul baby that Arwa is holding is named "Arwa" after Arwa. That illustrates the enormous respect the besieged citizens of Mosul have for Arwa because, more than anyone else, she has reported their plight to the rest of the world. In the very Mosul house where this baby was born, Arwa recently spent 28 hours direly threatened, along with the Iraqi civilians and their out-gunned Iraqi defenders who were trying desperately to ward off a blistering ISIS attack on the home. Upon her "Return to Mosul" the fearless and dedicated Arwa was showered with appreciation via hugs and kisses...and a baby named for her. Americans should appreciate Arwa too. 

       Instead of being normally relegated to the 3-to-6 A. M. time-slot, CNN's most brilliant and most important broadcast journalist, Arwa Damon, should be featured and highlighted in prime-time every night. That would make amends for America's broadcast journalism that highlights an endless stream of propaganda-spewing pundits, which is an insult to Americans, to Democracy and to journalism.

       Saturday -- April 8th, 2017 -- in prime-time on CNN, right after the superb documentary "Return to Mosul" that featured Arwa Damon, the "Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown" documentary series kicked off its 8th season. Mr. Bourdain returned to his favorite place -- Communist Vietnam -- to host his superb season opener from Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital that now is home to 8 million nice and U.S.-friendly people.

        As it happened, U. S. President Barack Obama was in Vietnam when Anthony Bourdain and his CNN crew got there, so they shared on camera some beer, a nice meal and an interesting conversation. Mr. Obama mentioned how important it was to become friends with "former enemies." Obama's predecessor, President George W. Bush, of course, had also paid a loving visit to Communist Vietnam. Vietnam is, after all, now a major U. S. trading partner. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, right after overthrowing imperialist France in a bloody war, Vietnam was faced with a far bloodier and longer war when the U. S. sought a regime-change in the distant country. The superpower U. S. discovered, as had the French, that military superiority on foreign soil was no match for people willing to die to defend their sovereignty.

         And so, a united Vietnam in 2017 is a Communist country but also very sovereign and very prosperous...and one beloved by U. S. Presidents such as Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama. The photo above from "Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown" shows Obama with a Vietnamese lady who is now an expert chef. Like many Vietnamese women today who are extremely U.S.-friendly, back in the 1960s and 1970s this woman was a fierce "Vietcong" fighter vilified in the U. S.

      This photo was taken from the ABC-TV documentary entitled "How Women Won the Vietnam War." Vietnamese women like these, unknown to most Americans, were the primary and decisive fighters throughout the Vietnam War, something the Vietnam War had in common with Cuba's Revolutionary War.

A typical "Vietcong" female soldier.

This woman captured a U.S.-armed South Vietnamese soldier.
She also took his U. S. rifle, which gave her two.

"Vietcong" female with captured U. S. soldier, 1966.

This "Vietcong girl" captured this downed U. S. pilot.

A do-or-die "Vietcong" female soldier.

A captured "Vietcong" soldier with his child.

"Vietcong" soldier brutalized by U.S.-backed soldiers.

Beheaded "Vietcong" male soldier displayed.

       But the main "Vietcong" soldiers that determined the outcome of the Vietnam War were females like the two shown above. Those who survived are like the women who so warmly hosted Presidents Bush and Obama in modern-day Communist Vietnam, and who hosted Anthony Bourdain and his "CNN Parts Unknown" season-opening documentary Saturday, April 8th, 2017. This photo reminds me of Cuba's Revolutionary War in the 1950s that preceded the 1960s Vietnam War that featured these two female "Vietcong" soldiers.

      During the Vietnam War, broadcast journalism in the U. S. was so superbly respected that once the great Walter Cronkite indicated that the "bloody experience" should end, it quickly ended...and so did the Presidency of "LBJ" because President Johnson was blamed by Cronkite for prolonging it. However, Mr. Cronkite has died and so, for the most part, has America's respect for broadcast journalism. That, of course, direly hurts America and, as an offshoot, threatens Cuba because there is today no mainstream broadcaster in America that has the guts to report fairly on U.S.-Cuban-Batistiano relations.

         It was not the U. S. government that decided the Vietnam War should end, it was a great broadcaster named Walter Cronkite and caring U. S. protests led by key Americans like Dr. Benjamin Spock and Martin Luther King who declared that the Vietnam War should end. Too bad, I guess, that the likes of Cronkite, Spock and King have not injected themselves into ending America's Cuban policies -- the embargo, the occupation of Guantanamo Bay, etc. -- that currently have a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations. 

       Cuba's do-or-die female guerrilla fighters like Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria were the primary architects, recruiters and warriors that predicated the victory for the Cuban Revolution in 1959 against superior forces backed by the strongest nation in the world, the United States, and by the strongest criminal organization in the world, the Mafia. The aforementioned ABC-TV and CNN documentaries in hindsight acknowledged the leading role Vietnamese women played in winning the Vietnam War and confirmed that a united Communist Vietnam is today a top U. S. trading partner and a key American ally and success story. Also, the female "Vietcong" fighters are no longer labeled anti-American fiends. But by sharp contrast, the United States media to this day is too afraid, too politically correct or too biased to acknowledge the greatness and decency of Cuban warriors like Celia and Haydee or to fairly judge the very decent generation of Cuban women on the island today who have similar values. Of course, the difference between the island of Cuba and Communist Vietnam today is simply this: No brutal Vietnamese dictatorship was overthrow by a popular revolution and then allowed to regroup on American soil.

       This recent photo is also pertinent. It shows a present-day Cuban female leader signing a major agreement with a present-day female Vietnamese leader. Cuba and Vietnam are close friends today; in fact, Cuba today has just one enemy and that happens to be the nearby world superpower that allows a few revengeful Cuban-Americans to dictate its Cuban policy. Thus, Cuba has been under the dire restraints of a U. S. economic embargo since 1962 while Communist Vietnam is today a major U. S. ally and trading partner. To repeat, the difference is the fact that, since 1959, remnants of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba have been permitted to dictate America's Cuban narrative and Cuban policies. Vietnam today, of course, dictates its own narrative and policies thanks to its back-to-back victories in bloody wars against France and the United States. As the updated photo above shows, Cuba today is trying to emulate the prosperous Vietnam economic system but, as always, the Batistiano-influenced U. S. Cuban policy fiercely fights Revolutionary Cuba's ongoing efforts to remain sovereign and to prosper.

 *&***********************&* 

A Cuban Policy FOR CRIMINALS

From 1952 TILL TODAY!
{Friday, April 8th, 2016}

        From the very top Mafia kingpin Lucky Luciano in 1952 till Silvio Clark Morales this Thursday -- April 6th of 2017 -- the United States policy regarding Cuba has been predicated largely in the best interest of civilian and political criminals. If you deny that, you conveniently perhaps have ignored Thursday's front pages of the Miami Herald and USA Today. The photo above is used courtesy of Univision and it was used Thursday to illustrate the major article in the Miami Herald. The article was written by Nora Gamez Torres and is entitled: "ALLEGED CUBAN SMUGGLER PLEADS GUILTY TO SEX TRAFFICKING." Don't read it if you want to keep your head in the sand about Miami's becoming a world-class criminal bastion since 1959 when it became the top destination for the leaders of Cuba's Batista-Mafia dictatorship after it was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution. But, for what it's worth, here are the exact opening words of the article:

                     "From high school teacher to pimp and human smuggler. This was the premise involving a Cuban resident in Miami accused of illegally bringing women from the island and forcing them into sex slavery in the United States. Silvio Clark Morales, 31, plead guilty in federal court Thursday to 7 of the 9 charges against him. Facing a maximum sentence of life in prison, Morales agreed to a plea deal and is now looking at a possible 30-year prison sentence. With his head down and tears streaming down his face, Morales..." 

          The school teacher, Morales, had no criminal record but, being a Cuban-American in Miami, he apparently realized he could easily and quickly become rich in a criminal enterprise AND FACE NO CONSEQUENCES. The criminal enterprise he chose was trafficking Cuban girls and women from the island to Miami because, after all, he seemed to realize that two generations of the richest and most powerful Cuban-Americans with ties back to the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba ruled not only Miami but, after a nice alliance with the Bush dynasty, also the U. S. Congress and Washington when it related to Cuban issues. This week Mr. Morales discovered that, after all, there indeed were some consequences even in Miami, perhaps because one of the final Executive Orders outgoing President Barack Obama issued last December was to end, at least temporarily, the Batistiano-loving U. S. law known as Wet Foot-Dry Foot.

         After the air, land and sea Bay of Pigs military attack on Cuba in April of 1961 was famously defeated by Revolutionary Cuba, and after numerous CIA-Cuban exile attempts to kill Fidel Castro failed, powerful Cuban-Americans in Miami -- aligned with self-serving right-wing politicians -- discovered they could easily enact laws in the U. S. Congress to destroy Revolutionary Cuba and recapture the island. One such law, of course, was the 1962 Economic Embargo that, according to declassified U. S. documents, was designed to starve & deprive Cubans on the island for the purpose of inducing them to overthrow their government; it is an embargo that exists to this day because Cuban-American extremists continue to dictate Cuban laws in the U. S. Congress, laws that currently have a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations but laws that two generations of unpatriotic Americans pusillanimously allow. Another such law, enacted in 1966, was the Cuban Adjustment Act that, like all the others, was designed to destroy Cuba but to also enrich and empower a handful of extremist Cuban-Americans who were mostly in Miami and mostly aligned with the Bush dynasty. Gradually after 1966 the Cuban Adjustment Act was revised with more and more insanely discriminatory anti-Cuban and pro-Cuban American laws, with the Wet Foot-Dry Foot colossal added in 1995.

       
        The infamous, discriminatory and undemocratic Wet Foot-Dry Foot law was designed to entice Cubans off the island to hurt Cuba and to help enrich and empower the most extremist Cuban-Americans in Miami. It allowed Cubans -- AND ONLY CUBANS -- to be home free the moment their front foot touched U. S. soil. The gross enticement called for special privileges only for Cubans such as instant legal residence, financial benefits and an easy path to citizenship. By then, the intimidated and propagandized American people were too afraid or simply too unpatriotic to care about how harmful such Cuban-only U. S. laws were to the image of America and democracy worldwide, such as demonstrated by the current 191-to-0 denunciation in the United Nations of America's Cuban policy. Of all the U. S. presidents since the 1950s, only President Obama had the sheer guts to challenge the Batistiano dictation of America's laws related to Cuba.

       On Dec. 12-2016 -- just days before his two-terms ended -- President Obama signed an Executive Order that ended Wet Foot-Dry Foot. By overturning the extremely discriminatory law, President Obama made it tougher on Cuban-American criminals in Miami AS REFLECTED by the aforementioned major article in Thursday's Miami Herald related to the human trafficker Silvio Clark Morales convicted of luring Cuban girls and women to Miami as "sex slaves." Sex traffickers, of course, loved Wet Foot-Dry Foot and it spawned more. Of course, even as Miami residents this week were devouring that article, the Miami Cuban-American members of the U. S. Congress -- Rubio, Diaz-Balart, Curbelo and Ros-Lehtinen -- were busy trying to get President Trump to issue Executive Orders of his own that would overturn Obama's sane and decent Executive Orders related to Cuba, and the pressuring of Trump remains an ongoing proposition.

      The photo depicting the basket full of cash is courtesy of USA Today and the South Florida Tri-County Task Force. It was used this week -- April 6th, 2017 -- to illustrate the TOP #1 article that blared across the FRONT PAGE of USA Today, America's largest newspaper. The article is entitled: "Greetings from Doral, Florida: The Cash Machine Fueling the Drug Trade." Doral is a suburb on the western edge of Miami. The article that started on the Front Page of Thursday's USA Today continued on to take up an entire full page, explaining in depth that the Miami area fuels the nationwide, devastating drug trade in the United States. It uses such bold sub-titles as: "And Not One Arrest." Of course not!! We're talking Miami here and, since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on Jan. 1-1959, Miami has been a wealthy and out-of-control Banana Republic on U. S. soil. Famed documentaries such as "Cocaine Cowboys" have documented that the extremely impressive Miami skyline was largely built with tons of drug money following the Cuban Revolution-fueled transition of South Florida. Numerous USA Today articles have labeled Miami as the "epicenter" for America's drug trade, illicit pill factories, the gross fleecing of billion-dollar tax supported entities such as Medicare, etc., etc. And then yesterday the aforementioned huge article that starts across the Front Page of USA Today merely updates the decades-old criminal activity centered around Miami that affects the entire nation. 

        Doral is a suburb on the edge of Miami, Florida. The top Front Page article in USA Today Thursday -- for what it's worth -- highlighted Doral as "THE CASH MACHINE FUELING THE DRUG TRADE." On the last page of that huge article was this glaring sub-headline: "AND NOT ONE ARREST." So I repeat: of course not.

      The Mayor of Doral on the edge of Miami is Juan Carlos Bermudez. He was asked by USA Today to comment on Thursday's scathing article about his city. His blocked-off reply was: "It's not good for Florida. It's not good for Doral. It's not representative of the majority of the businesses we have here." Wikipedia reveals that at the start of this 21st Century, Spanish was by far the first language in Doral -- by a 74.5 percent margin to 16.15 percent for English. I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with polls that show that most of South Florida's two million Cuban-Americans favor former President Obama's decent policies regarding Cuba but it seems that such moderates can't get elected to local or national offices despite being in a clear majority. Yet...Miami-Doral remains on U. S. soil; BUT SO, I GUESS, DOES GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA. Thus, I wonder if USA Today will ever have a Front Page article depicting what Miami-Doral and Guantanamo Bay have in common. Uh, just wondering...you understand.

*&***********************&*

Lying About Cuba Harms America

To Benefit A Nefarious Few!

       Americans are not supposed to see or understand photos such as this one because it's a Cuban positive in April of 2017 and therefore might serve to contradict the Cuban narrative in the United States, a narrative self-servingly dictated since 1959 by elements that fled the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba. But permit me to show you this photo, taken by Miguel Febles Hernandez, and explain its meaning. In the forefront are a Cuban mother and her daughter. They had just had check-ups...health care in Cuba is totally free...at a brand new, just-opened polyclinic shown in the background. The clinic is named for "Rosa Castellanos," which is fitting because the Cuban Revolution was spawned in 1953 by Cuban females outraged by the Batista-Mafia treatment of the island's besieged women and children. The "Rosa Castellanos Clinic" is located in the municipality of Najasa to serve its citizens free of charge 24 hours a day. I mention it not because it is earth-shaking news outside of today's Cuba but because propagandized Americans, since 1959, have meekly and callously allowed miscreants from their soil to...attack Cuba militarily such as at the Bay of Pigs; to sanitize themselves and vilify innocent Cubans; to attack Cuba with terrorist acts such as the bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455; to car-bomb a Cuban-American newsman named Emilio Milian in Miami just because he objected to such things; and to try to starve and deprive Cuba from 1962 till today with the cruelest and longest economic embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak one. Much larger nations than Cuba would have succumbed long ago to such assaults engineered by unchecked counter-revolutionaries hiding behind the skirts of the world's superpower. One reason Revolutionary Cuba still stands as a sovereign nation is because it still has on the island a bevy of fiercely determined and very talented women...such as Isabel Gonzalez Cardenas. 

       One of the Cuban officials who presided over the opening of the Rosa Castellanos Clinic was Isabel Gonzalez Cardenas. She is the President of the Provincial Assembly in Camaguey, Cuba. At the clinic's opening ceremony she said, "Now and forever we will do all we can with all the resources we have to take care of our people, especially the women and children who are the best gauge of how a society cares for its citizens. This new clinic is an example. We have been assaulted and embargoed for over half-a-century from a nearby nation that happens to be the world's superpower, but as long as we can breathe on this island we will continue the best we can to try to protect our people far better than they fared when the superpower and the Miami Mafia criminals ruled Cuba on the island just as they are now trying to rule it from the United States." 

        A handful of vicious Cuban-Americans from Miami entrenched in the U. S. Congress -- such as Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart -- dictate America's Cuban policy that currently and correctly has a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations. The cowered and/or incompetent U. S. media will eagerly promote anything Rubio and Diaz-Balart say or propose about Cuba, without ever mentioning such things as...Diaz-Balart's father was a powerful Minister in the Batista dictatorship and after 1959 an extremely rich and powerful counter-revolutionary zealot in Miami. Rubio, as any Google research will confirm, is every bit as controversial as Diaz-Balart within the confines of Miami's Banana Republic-like politics, controversies the mainstream media wouldn't dare touch. All polls show that most of the two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida favor a decent Cuban policy but there seems to be zero chance that a moderate Cuban from the rich Banana Republic could get elected to the United States Congress. In the last few days Rubio made headlines by bragging he had met "three times" with President Trump about Cuba, three ominous meetings that are far more insulting to the United States than to Cuba, which as Isabel indicated is still breathing. And in the last few days, Diaz-Balart has made headlines by demanding that Cuba, essentially, totally capitulate to his dictates "WITHIN 90 DAYS" or else!! Yes, OR ELSE. Cuba has been getting or else dictates from the rich, powerful & unchallenged Diaz-Balarts since 1959. 

       Meanwhile, on the island of Cuba itself, women like Isabel Gonzalez Cardenas are diligently working to protect and improve the lives of Cuban citizens, especially the women and children that she says "are the best gauge of how a society takes care of its people." Isabel deserves to smile and be proud of herself.

Batista's Cuba in the 1950's.

Isabel's Cuba in April of 2017.

*&***********************&*

Cuba in Trump's Crosshairs

A Great Floridian Is Worried!!
{Wednesday, April 5th, 2017}

    This week -- April 3rd, 2017 -- CBS News blared this major headline: "Florida Congresswoman Worried Trump Administration May Reverse Obama Policy on Cuba." That bold, astute, caring Congresswoman, of course, is Kathy Castor. Ms. Castor is by far the best and the bravest Florida member of the United States Congress since the Batista-Mafia Banana Republic in Cuba was chased to its new stronghold in Miami by the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. Ms. Castor was born in Miami 50 years ago but has represented the Tampa-St. Petersburg area in the United States Congress since 2007. She has been the only member of Congress from Florida since 1959 to have the decency, the guts and the respect for America and Democracy to fight for a sane Cuban policy, not one dictated by the most vicious remnants of Cuba's brutal, thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Congresswoman Castor told CBS News this week: "There are some real hardliners that are pressing to roll back the progress that we have made on Cuban engagement. I'm hopeful the Trump administration will not do that and they're also hearing comments from Chambers of Commerce, families, and entrepreneurs that are growing businesses in Cuba. Why would we go backwards...when for the first time in 50 years we're seeing business on both sides of the Florida Straits grow?"

       The sheer decency and sanity of Congresswoman Kathy Castor regarding Cuba is generally ignored by the mainstream U. S. media that is simply too afraid and too incompetent to depart from the Cuban narrative espoused by only the most ardent revenge-seekers against the Cuban Revolution. So CBS by merely quoting Kathy Castor is a rare display of guts and fairness from the mainstream U. S. media.

     In 2016 when President Obama himself traveled to Cuba and was very engaged in a bold series of Executive Orders regarding Cuba, Congresswoman Castor was on the island to encourage the President and to do her job representing the best interests of her constituents in the Tampa area, especially U. S. businesses desiring commerce with Cuba. As noted, she remains the only Florida member of Congress with the decency and the courage to be ashamed about a Batistiano-driven U. S. Cuban policy that properly gets a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations. This week Ms. Castor told CBS that an American Cuban policy dictated only by biased extremists both shames and harms America, not to mention 11 million totally innocent Cubans on the island. She told CBS April 3rd, "I know they {the extremists} argue that nothing has changed in Cuba, but to the contrary, a lot is changing in Cuba. Young entrepreneurs are building businesses on the island. What we've got to do is lift the embargo...so we can build on the progress that we've made." 

        Last week two of the Cuban-American/Miami-based members of the U. S. Congress -- Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio -- made headlines with their typical Cuban extremism. Diaz-Balart, whose father was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship, offered to trade his Republican vote on the Heath Bill if his Cuban dictates were adhered to by President Trump. Diaz-Balart wanted to give Cuba "90 days" to do his and the atrocious Helms-Burton bidding or...ELSE. That particular grossness by Diaz-Balart was so extreme that he was finally excoriated in a Miami Herald editorial written by the Miami Herald's most extreme anti-Castro, Cuban-born Editorial Writer Fabiola Santiago who blasted Diaz-Balart for...amazingly...using his anti-Cuban extremism to harm the thousands of Miami Cuban-Americans who were benefiting from the current Health Care bill that Diaz-Balart eagerly seemed willing to trade away if Trump would back his anti-Cuban extremism. Miami's Rubio is as extreme as Diaz-Balart when it comes to benefiting from anti-Cuban extremism. Rubio last week made headlines by bragging that he had met "three times" with Trump to expound on his anti-Cuban extremism, which demands that Cuba conform to his extreme dictates.

      A handful of Miami-based Cuban-American extremists...such as Rubio, Diaz-Balart, & Ros-Lehtinen in the United States Congress..are allowed to endlessly dictate America's Cuban narrative and Cuban policy because neither the U. S. citizens nor the U. S. media has the guts or the patriotism to challenge them.

       Havana-born Fabiola Santiago since 1980 has been the most consistently vicious anti-Castro reporter, columnist, and now editorial writer for the Miami Herald. When she of all people writes a scathing editorial criticizing Mario Diaz-Balart's anti-Cuban extremism in the U. S. Congress, I believe it is high-time for even timid Americans to realize that allowing the son of a former Batista Minister to make and promote extreme anti-Cuban decisions in the U. S. Congress is, to say the least, an insult to democracy and to America. 

       Miami-born Kathy Castor, who has represented Tampa in the U. S. Congress for the past decade, incredibly had her sane and decent views expressed April 3rd by a CBS News report. That was amazing and extraordinary because normally the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid and too incompetent to air anything other than the self-serving anti-Cuban extremism of the most extreme remnants of the extremely cruel Batista-Mafia dictatorship from 1950's Cuba. Most of the two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida, from Tampa on down to and including Miami, agree with Kathy Castor but there appears to be zero chance that such a moderate Cuban-American can get elected to the U. S. Congress. Meanwhile, Kathy Castor continues to wage a brave fight to infuse America's Cuban policy with some sanity and decency.

This photo is by and used courtesy of Dany del Pino.

        You see, Congresswoman Kathy Castor does not believe the United States of America should be engaged, decade after decade, in hurting precious, totally innocent Cuban children...such as these two...to sate the self-serving appetites of a few extremists. The current 191-to-0 condemnation of America and Americans in the United Nations stems solely from the fact that Americans have allowed this to happen...generation to generation. The little girl above is expressing a childish opinion to the little boy on their embargoed and besieged island but she is too young to understand that the embargo and the targeting is aimed at them from the richest and strongest nation in the world. But Congresswoman Kathy Castor from Tampa understands it...and one day this little Cuban girl and this little Cuban boy will too.

   *&***********************&*