Trump Sets Cuba's Doomsday

Mark It Down: February 7th, 2018!!
{Updated: Sunday, January 28th, 2018}

       Even as the Trump administration in Washington has set Cuba's doomsday as February 7th, 2018, as we will explain, U. S. executives were in Havana signing major deals with state-owned Cuban businesses. Guy Henderson, President of U.S.-based Sony ATV Music Publishing, is shown on the right after signing a mega deal on January 24th, 2018 with Mario Angel Escalona Serrano, head of Cuba's Egrem Record Label. Now Sony will distribute the catalog of Cuba's state-run Egrem Music. The U. S. Sony music giant sought and has received the rights to renowned Cuban artists. 

      The Voice of America this week used this Reuters photo to illustrate a major article on the VOA's international platforms to hint that February 7th-2018 is the day the Trump administration has set as the start of its effort to overthrow Cuba's revolutionary government. The photo shows a man using a computer in the lobby of a Havana hotel. The VOA article is entitled: "U. S. State Department Creates Cuba Internet Task Force." That Task Force will meet Feb. 7th-2018 in Washington and it is in keeping with a pledge that President Trump made to hard-line Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans in Miami's Little Havana on June 16, 2017. That day Trump stood before Bay of Pigs Assault Banner 2506 and essentially told elderly survivors of the April-1961 military attack on Cuba that he would fulfill their dreams of overthrowing Revolutionary Cuba. The "Cuba Internet Task Force" that holds its first meeting on Feb. 7th-2018 is a culmination of Trump's June 16-2017 promise.

Photo courtesy: Desmond Boylan/Associated Press.

     The same day this week the VOA article appeared, the Miami Herald used the above photo to headline an article entitled: "Trump Administration Wants to Expand Internet Access in Cuba." While that is supposed to be a benign headline in Miami, in Havana it signals the start -- on Feb. 7-2018 -- of the Trump administration's effort to overthrow Revolutionary Cuba. The article, written by anti-Cuban zealot Nora Gamez Torres, stated: "As part of President Trump's Cuba policy, as outlined in its June presidential memorandum, the Department of State has created the Cuba Internal Task Force." Not surprisingly, the Miami Herald article said that Miami's lushly funded Radio-TV Marti anti-Cuban propaganda vehicle will be a part of that Task Force when it meets on Feb. 7-2018 in Washington. It is presumed that other fierce Counter Revolutionary forces from Miami will also dominate that Task Force meeting.

      Anti-Cuban zealot Nora Gamez Torres wrote this week's celebratory article in the Miami Herald about the upcoming Feb. 7-2018 Cuban Task Force meeting in Washington that supposedly will begin Cuba's long-awaited doomsday. But such celebrations since 1959 in Miami have been premature and overly optimistic, so this one too might prove more humiliating to the Batistianos in Miami than to Cuba.

     When Obama was the U. S. President, Internet giant Google opened the above Technology Center in Havana on March 21, 2016. This proved that Cuba wanted to expand and improve Internet service on the island...at least when it trusted the U. S. when Obama was President. But Cuba in 2018 doesn't trust the U. S. with Trump in power and therefore Cuba believes the Feb. 7th-2018 Cuba Internet Task Force in Washington is designed to "destabilize" the island's sovereignty and security.

    The photo above shows President Trump displaying that memorandum he signed on June 16-2017 in Little Havana before a choir of vicious Counter Revolutionaries in Miami. Cheering the presidential action was, on the far left, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart whose father was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Third from the right is Senator Marco Rubio, another flagrant Miami anti-Cuban extremist.

     In a drastic but expected departure from the decent Obama presidency, on June 16th, 2017, President Donald Trump made the above speech in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood standing before a huge Assault Banner of the Brigade 2506 that attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. Only a handful of those failed attackers are still living but Trump, tossing democracy into the trashcan, promised them he would make up for their humiliating defeat from six decades ago. As Trump made that promise, all the nations in the UN had voted 191-to-0 to condemn the Bastistiano-driven U. S. Cuban policy. In fact, polls show most Cuban-Americans in Miami favor Obama-like normal relations with Cuba. But the weakness of America's two-party political system for decades has been crystallized by the USA's effort since 1959 to recapture Cuba for a few Batistiano-Mafiosi extremists. When the Democratic Party is in control of the White House, democracy is generally respected regarding Cuba. But when the Republican Party controls the White House it is like putting Batistiano-Mafiosi boss Lucky Luciano in charge of America's Cuban policies. And for six decades, two generations of gutless Americans have allowed this assault on their democracy to persist without even a modicum of embarrassment that the USA Cuban policy is the only topic that could possibly get a 191-to-ZERO condemnation in a very diverse world. Reversing the decency of Democratic President Obama, Republican President Trump, as shown above, turned America's Cuban policy back over to a mere handful of vicious, self-serving Counter Revolutionaries in Miami's Little Havana and, in today's milieu, if that Cuban Task Force that meets in Washington on Feb. 7-2018 decides to nuke 11.4 million innocent Cubans neither the United States media nor this generation of United States citizens would likely have the guts to object.

     The anointment of former Brigade 2506 soldier Jorge Mas Canosa as America's Cuban dictator by the Bush dynasty soon made Canosa a Miami billionaire and the architect of such Counter Revolutionary things as...the Cuban American National Foundation, the Helms-Burton Act, Radio-TV Marti, etc. Yet, even with unchecked U. S. Cuban dictators during all Republican administrations, Cuba somehow has managed to maintain its hard-earned sovereignty except for its inability to regain control of Guantanamo Bay, which has been a controversial U. S. Naval Base since 1903.

      One of the many lucrative enterprises created by the Bush-anointed Canosa was Radio-TV Marti that has, everyday since the 1980s, sucked untold millions-and-MILLIONS of tax dollars in a steady pipeline from Washington to Miami. It is supposed to be an anti-Castro propaganda machine that will cause the Cuban people to rise up and overthrow their government but, first-off, it is just a cash-cow for hard-line Cubans in Miami. Decades ago ABC-News had a famous report entitled "The Broadcast to Nowhere" that explained, despite sucking up hundreds of millions of tax dollars even then, the broadcasts were easily blocked by Cuba and, in any case, Cubans would consider it slanted propaganda from a foreign enemy. YET to this day tax dollars flow to Miami for Radio-TV Marti and, not surprisingly, Radio-TV Marti has reportedly been added to the Feb. 9-2018 Cuban Task Force in Washington, along with similarly motivated entities, that will supposedly commence the Trump effort to reshape Havana solely in Little Havana's extremist image. 

     For all intents and purposes, Miami's Senator Marco Rubio has been anointed by Trump to be America's latest Cuban dictator, the same Marco Rubio that candidate Trump mocked as "Little Marco" during the 2016 Republican primary. 

    Meanwhile, Cuba is busy preparing for a new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who will officially take office in April, 2018, with the retirement of 86-year-old Raul Castro. Diaz-Canel will be the first non-Castro to lead Cuba since 1959 and he also will be the first Cuban leader born since the triumph of the Revolution. A teacher, he rose from the ranks in Villa Clara and Holguin Provinces far from Havana but became Cuba's Minister of Education, a priority still dear to him. Popular on the island with everyday Cubans, he is known as a huge fan of the Beatles and motorcycles. But as First Vice President he has traveled widely to meet world leaders. Also, Diaz-Canel is considered less likely than Raul Castro, who teamed with President Obama to try to normalize relations with the U. S., to "bend over backwards to accommodate America," as one key Diaz-Canel observer recently articulated. Instead, since Trump replaced Obama, Diaz-Canel has stressed acutely improving relations with three particular forces -- the European Union, China, and Russia. And those efforts in January-2018 are already showing up on the streets of Havana.

     In the very first week of January-2018, Federica Mogherini, the powerful High Administrator of the 28-nation European Union, paid an ultra-friendly and productive visit to Cuba. She is known to be impressed with Cuba's next President Miguel Diaz-Canel. At a news conference in Havana, Mogherini said, "The U. S. blockade of Cuba is self-defeating, cruel, and illegal." She wants the EU nations to make up for the U. S. embargo and for the diminished trade Cuba had with now crisis-wracked Venezuela.

Cuba's important EU friend.

      The powerful EU leader Federica Mogherini joins the unanimity of world opinion that condemns the cruelty and illegality of the U. S. embargo/blockade against Cuba.

     A huge plus for Cuba is Miguel Diaz-Canel's close friendship with the EU's ultra-powerful Federica Mogherini. She is excited about Miguel Diaz-Canel leading Cuba.

Diaz-Canel is a friend of China's President Zi.

      But President Putin of Russia is courting Cuba's next leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, every bit as anxiously as the EU and China. Diaz-Canel believes, "We have spent, I believe, too much time hoping for friendship with the United States at the expense of cultivating better friendship with our friends who accept our nation's sovereignty."

    Quite significantly this month -- on January 17th, 2018 -- Gerardo Penalver became Cuba's Ambassador to Russia. Penalver had been Cuba's important Director General of Domestic Affairs but Diaz-Canel wanted him to be the island's top man in Moscow.

     Positioning a key Cuban, Gerardo Penalver, as Cuba's new Ambassador to Russia provides a window into how Miguel Diaz-Balart plans to rule Cuba in the Trump era.

     This photo reveals how Russia is trying to take advantage of the Trump-Rubio belligerency towards Cuba. That's a 2018 Russian Lada auto driving past the Russian embassy in Havana this week. Following a Russian delivery of oil to Cuba, this week a Russian ship delivered 344 new Lada cars to Cuba. Russia's top auto dealer, AvtoVAZ, believes it now produces quality cars that deserve international exposure and it now believes its strong presence in Cuba will advertise that fact.

      Many of the 344 newly arrived {on January 19th, 2018} Lada cars from Russia have already been added to Cuba's taxi fleet, like the four shown here. Luis Diaz Hernandez, the head of Taxis Cuba, beamed this week, "These new Lada cars have greatly bolstered the island's capacity to serve its citizens and the tourists. These Russian cars are world-class." Cuba, when Obama was President, hoped such trade would be with the nearby U. S. but, with Trump as President, Cuba's next leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, has already helped orchestrate important oil and automobile deals with Russia as well as sign key trade agreements with the EU.

      And so, as Cuba prepares to transition to a Fidel Castro-loving but non-Castro leader born after the triumph of the Revolution, President Trump's Feb. 7-2018 Cuban Task Force meeting in Washington may or may not be the beginning of doomsday for Revolutionary Cuba, as Trump seems to have promised Miami extremists. After all, the pugnacious island has survived NUMEROUS predicted doomsdays since 1959.

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Cuban-American Extremists vs. Democracy

A 60-Year Quest to Recapture Cuba!!

And a 60-Year Insult to Democracy!
{Updated: Wednesday, January 24th, 2018}

      One of America's greatest experts regarding Cuba and U.S.-Cuban relations is Philip Peters. He was a State Department official in the Batistiano-loving/Cuba-hating George H. W. Bush administration. He is Vice President of the Lexington Institute. He is a highly respected author-writer and in 2007 he started the blog The Cuban Triangle to explain the tenuous tentacles that connect Havana, Miami, and Washington. His very first post on his blog, by the way, was entitled: "What Next for Posada?" Luis Posada Carriles, of course, is the most famous/infamous Cuban-American terrorist whose imprint on U.S.-Cuban relations from 1959 till today remains one...but just one...of the greatest insults to the U. S. democracy. {Posada turns 90 on Feb. 15th and remains today a very heralded citizen of Miami}. The current Philip Peters essay on his The Cuban Triangle blog is entitled: "The Havana Health Mystery." Within the bowels of that topical headline, Philip Peters expertly and fairly discusses the latest pretext for self-serving Cuban-American extremists who are presently led, as Mr. Peters points out, by Miami's Counter-Revolutionary contribution to the U. S. Senate, Marco Rubio. Of course, because Philip Peters' current update on "The Havana Health Mystery" is fair and balanced, Americans are not supposed to read it because it contradicts Rubio's propaganda. And that, unfortunately, is the way a few self-serving Cuban-Americans extremists have dominated America's Cuban policy for the past 60 years...or ever since they were booted off the island by an historic phenomenon known as the Cuban Revolution, which has affected the U. S. even more than it has affected the sovereign and neighboring island of Cuba.

     Nevertheless, I believe it is important that brave, democracy-loving Americans read and study the current essay posted on Philip Peters' The Cuban Triangle blog. His expertise examines the present pretext that right-wing extremists like Rubio are using as their latest reason -- the alleged "sonic attacks on Americans in Cuba" -- to implore the Superpower U. S. government to recapture Cuba for them. The previous 60 years, as Mr. Peters references, included the criminally hatched but long-classified OPERATION MONGOOSE and Operation Northwoods. "Mongoose" was the record-setting and government-funded assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and "Northwoods" was the even more infamous plan to murder innocent Americans so the murders could be blamed on Cuba. Of course, proselytized Americans still are not suppose to Google those two schemes even though they have been de-classified since the 1990s. Likewise, Americans today are not supposed to dial up Philip Peters' fair and expert appraisal of Rubio's current pretext -- the "sonic attacks" -- because Peters expertly challenges Rubio's latest excuse to assault, nuke, or otherwise attack Revolutionary Cuba. But just for the record, here are some of the highlights of Philip Peters' "The Havana Health Mystery" article:

                               "This is a doozy even in the context of U.S.-Cuba relations. Within weeks Senator Rubio was urging the Secretary of State..."

                  That preamble by Peters referenced Rubio's efforts to use the "alleged sonic attacks" as the Mongoose/Northwoods-type excuses to assault Cuba. Peters continued with these factual refutations of Rubio's pretext:

                                   "The shorthand for what happened in Havana quickly became 'sonic attacks' even though there is no evidence of attacks, sonic or otherwise. What we really have is a health mystery that has confounded U. S., Canadian, and Cuban investigations. The FBI, after sending four experts and their equipment four times to Havana, has concluded that there is no evidence of a sonic attack. But you have to hand it to Rubio and his allies: Sonic attacks is quite a branding triumph without having to argue the merits of diplomatic relations with Cuba. They scored a substantial policy victory that has hobbled diplomatic relations. Senator Rubio was quite sure that no one from Miami could be involved."

             With those comments, Philip Peters was referencing the fact that Rubio and his ilk also are "quite sure that no one from Miami" could possibly have been involved in the terrorist bombing of the civilian, child-laden Cuban airplane that sent 73 innocent souls into the ocean and, of course, Rubio is also "quite sure that no one from Miami" had anything to do with the terrorist car-bombing of the decent and brave Cuban-American newsman in Miami who broadcast opposition to such terrorism. Moreover, even today Americans are not supposed to Google facts about such things as the Miami-based airplane bombing of CUBANA FLIGHT 455 or the car-bombing of EMILIO MILIAN, further evidence that the Cuban Revolution says a lot more about the U. S. than it says about Cuba itself. And Philip Peters astutely suggested that January of 2018 is a particularly crucial time for the U. S. to leave its dastardly Cuban policy in the hands of a handful of self-serving extremists like Rubio. Peters put it this way:

                             "Cuba is about to go through a leadership transition and the uncertainly that will come with a government that, for the first time in 60 years, is not led by a Castro."

          But such sane, decent, and accurate words from an expert like Philip Peters are not supposed to factor into the U. S. democracy's Cuban policy, one dictated by extremists like Rubio and one that is condemned in total unanimity by a 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations when not even the Obama administration could support it. But in the Trump era in the past year, the unanimity of world opinion and the majority opinions of Americans and Cuban-Americans are not supposed to count but the anti-American/anti-democracy opinions of Marco Rubio are supposed to count.

     The decent Obama has been out of the White House just over a year. In defiance of a Batistiano-controlled Congress, Obama's Cuban policies were approved by most Americans, most Cuban-Americans and the entire world. But, as indicated above, Rubio from Miami and the U. S. Senate, with self-serving idiocy from his fire-spewing mouth, opposed Obama's Cuban decency that was probably the only topic in the world that could have attained unanimous support in a very diverse world.

    And that brings us up-to-date with this photo of Senator Marco Rubio in January of 2018. It was taken on Jan. 9-2018 when Rubio chaired an anti-Cuban session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Western Hemisphere Committee. Only anti-Cuba Cuban-American zealots, it seems, can get elected to the United States Congress from Miami and Newark, and they immediately apply for Foreign Relations & Western Hemisphere Committees and therefore such anti-Cuban zealots as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Robert Menendez, and now Rubio have chaired such committees so they can better assault Cuba, a foreign nation in the Western Hemisphere. Thus, on January 9th, 2018, Rubio chaired the Senate's latest massive anti-Cuban boondoggle, using the "sonic attacks" that Philip Peters fairly addressed as the new Mongoose & Northwest-type pretext to defeat the Cuban Revolution once-and-for-all to...WHAT? Restore the Batistiano-Mafiosi rule??

         IINCREDIBLY, within the bowels of the great American democracy, that Jan. 9th-2018 U. S. Senate assault on Cuba was chaired by Marco Rubio and co-chaired by Bob Menendez. They are not only the two most anti-Cuban Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Senate, they are easily the two most controversial U. S. Senators. Rubio reached the U. S. Senate from Miami with his bio still claiming that his parents fled the tyranny of Castro's Cuba while, in fact, they fled the tyranny of Batista's Cuba LONG BEFORE Americans ever head of Fidel Castro. The best true biographical update on Rubio is by Ken Silverstein, one of America's greatest and most respected journalists. Americans are not supposed to Google Silverstein's easily dialed-up and in-depth Rubio bio because Silverstein minutely documents Rubio as "head and shoulders above everyone else" when it comes to chicanery and corruption in Washington and that says quite a lot. As for Rubio's Cuban-American co-chair in that U. S. Senate Jan. 9-2018 assault on Cuba, Menendez after a bruising 3-month trial in 2017 was bailed out by a hung-jury that failed to convict him on any of the 18 felony charges expensively prosecuted by the U. S. Justice Department after 3 long and expensive years of investigating the Menendez shenanigans with a convicted Miami felon and multi-millionaire. Yet, in this month of January-2018 the U. S. Justice department has announced it will ONCE AGAIN try to convict Menendez in yet another federal courthouse although trying to convict a high-profile Cuban-American in Miami or Newark courts is an almost impossible task. AND YET, Americans still tolerate Rubio & Menendez as the Chair and co-Chair of this month's farcical U. S. Senate assault on Cuba, an assault in which Chairman Marco Rubio and Co-Chairman Bob Menendez punctuated the farce with "testimony" from the most radical anti-Cuban propagandists such as the infamous Havana-born benefactor Otto Reich.

     In a review of the 60-year Cuban-exile extremists assault on Cuba, I invite democracy-loving Americans to dial up Ken Silverstein's unchallenged and lushly documented article that details why Rubio is "heads and shoulders above everyone else" when it comes to chicanery and corruption in Washington political circles.

       While the controversial Rubio chaired that Jan.9-2018 anti-Cuban farce in the Senate, the co-chair was Robert Menendez. Yes, the Robert Menendez that the FBI and the U. S. Justice department for three years has been trying to convict on multiple corruption and bribery charges as delineated above. In 2017 after a 3-month trial in federal court in his backyard in Newark, Menendez was bailed out by a hung-jury. But in January of 2018 the U. S. government announced it will not give up in trying to prosecute Menendez, meaning the expensive attempt is still ongoing.

      The farcical anti-democracy United States Senate assault this month on Cuba -- incredibly Chaired by Marco Rubio and co-Chaired by Robert Menendez -- was highlighted by the "EXPERT TESTIMONY" of Otto Reich. Born in Havana 72 years ago, Otto Reich epitomizes the extreme favor Fidel Castro in January of 1959 bestowed on exiles like Reich when the Cuban Revolution chased the Batista-Mafia leaders off the island to U. S. soil. As Cuban-American billionaires like the Bush-anointed Jorge Mas Canosa and like the politically savvy Fanjul brothers quickly learned, getting extremely rich being anti-Castro in the U. S. even beat getting rich being aligned with the Batista-Mafia leaders in Cuba back in the 1950s. After all, fleecing an island is not nearly as lucrative as fleecing the world's economic Superpower, which has proved to be quite easy with the proper political connections. Otto Reich as a Bush prodigy in the U. S. has personified that basic fact for decades and no one knows better than Reich how rewarding anti-Castro propaganda can be in the United States...EVEN AFTER THE DEATH OF FIDEL CASTRO AT AGE 90 ON NOV. 25-2016. And so...on Jan. 9th, 2018 the two anti-Castro CO-CHAIRS IN THE U. S. SENATE, Rubio and Menendez, naturally called on the "EXPERT TESTIMONY" of Otto Reich.

     From 1959 till today, the only trick the anti-Castro extremists in the U. S. needed to know was to hook-up with the Bush dynasty and that started in the 1950s long before 3 Bush presidential terms and 2 Bush terms as Florida's governor. Canosa was the all-time most important BUSH POINT MAN but, as indicated above, Otto Reich earned that moniker too.

    Somewhere in the last 60 years, America 's democracy-lovers deserved for such things as the Otto Reich alliance with the Bush dynasty to have been ferreted out and corrected. But the Rubio-Menendez-Reich menagerie playing out in the U. S. Senate on January 9th-2018 proves that such an alliance is still to this day far too lucrative for far too many in the United States.

     While Marco Rubio insults democracy by claiming his War on Cuba is designed to hurt "the Castros," every intelligent observer with even a modicum of guts fully realizes that Rubio and his ilk primarily hurt totally innocent everyday Cubans like the lady vendor depicted above. Rich thugs in a nearby rich nation hurting non-rich people in a weaker nation. Self-serving miscreants in the USA have gotten away with that for 60 years.

   While the mainstream U. S. media, for whatever reasons {the Emilio Milian car-bombing?}, still promotes Rubio as a Mother Teresa-like saint, his hometown paper, the Miami Herald, has had recent Editorials saying he is "out of touch," apparently with everything except assaulting Cubans on the island, promoting himself, and catering to right-wing billionaire donors. The Miami Herald, see above, provided an entire article for four female Cuban entrepreneurs to rant their outrage at Rubio, calling him a coward for at least not bothering to listen to them or meet with them to learn how much he is hurting not the Castros but everyday Cubans who had benefited from openings provided by former President Obama, openings that Rubio is determined to squash with headwinds provided by President Trump. The Miami Herald Editorial Board obviously agreed with the four female Cuban entrepreneurs, not with their own "out of touch" Rubio.

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Cuba as Viewed by Cubans

Not by Marco Rubio!!!
{Sunday, January 21st, 2018}

Photo courtesy of: Roberto Leon/NBC News.

       On this third weekend in January of 2018 there is a lot of USA news to cover, including the first government shutdown on the one-year anniversary of the Trump presidency. But CNBC News this weekend featured a major article entitled: "TOURISM BOOMING IN CUBA DESPITE TOUGH NEW TRUMP POLICY." And the primary NBC News Network, which promotes itself as the "world's most-watched news source," this busy weekend had a major report entitled "DESPITE US-CUBA TENSIONS, MORE AMERICANS ATTEND HAVANA'S FAMED JAZZ FESTIVAL." That update by NBC News related to the Havana Jazz Festival that runs through Monday, January 22nd, 2018. The above photo was taken from that report and shows America's multiple-Grammy-winning jazz superstar DeeDee Bridgewater performing at this weekend's Havana Jazz Festival. You are invited...encouraged, actually...to use the above titles and dial up the NBC News report on the Festival because it actually presents an accurate report on Cuba from Cuba, and that's much better than getting force-fed propaganda about Cuba from Marco Rubio, who has never set foot in Cuba. If he did, he would learn what NBC News knows and what Americans that have been to Cuba, like me, know. And that is this: Cubans on the island are obsessed with their INDEPENDENCE, their BASEBALL, and their MUSIC, not with what Trump and Rubio in Washington are planning for them. And that basic fact, I believe, is precisely why Rubio...who is apparently Trump's newly anointed American dictator of Cuba...spends much of his time in the U. S. Congress trying to make sure everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba, lest they might judge it for themselves as opposed to believing Marco Rubio.

     The image above is taken from the NBC News report on this weekend's Havana Jazz Festival. It shows U. S. Jazz legend DeeDee Bridgewater performing before appreciative Cuban fans and what NBC discovered to be a surprisingly "large" number of Americans. DeeDee told NBC: "I have a deep appreciation for the struggles of this country. I am thankful for President Obama's openings with this island and I just hope that this is going to continue to grow." And DeeDee told NBC that the U.S.-Cuban ties will "continue to grow if more and more Americans visit the island and engage with these wonderful people."

     The Miami-based Cuban-American who is the President & CEO of the giant Norwegian Cruise Line, Frank Del Rio, earlier this month said almost precisely the same thing that DeeDee Bridgewater told NBC News this weekend. As you can see on a YouTube interview conducted by Cristina Escobar, Frank Del Rio said, "I have arrived 8 times in Cuba on my cruise ships recently thanks to President Obama's openings to the island. We poll our tourists regarding which of the well-known 55 cities we have taken them to that they enjoy the most, and Havana comes out as the #1 city. That's because the Cuban people are the most welcoming people in the world, and that includes visitng Americans and Cuban-Americans like me." Of course, propagandized Americans who have never been to Cuba are supposed to believe every word Rubio, who has never been to Cuba, says about the island...and ignore what Cuban-Americans like frequent visitor Frank say about an island they know.

     Like America's NBC News, Cuba's well-respected television networks this weekend are covering the Havana Jazz Festival, providing live broadcasts across the island. Last week Cuban television lavishly covered Cuba's baseball playoffs. That doesn't surprise Americans who have visited Cuba and engaged with the Cuban people. The vast majority of Cubans, aside from their families and their fellow Cubans, are indeed obsessed with three primary things: their independence; their baseball; and their music. If Rubio says they are obsessed with re-locating to Miami or with being dominated by a foreign superpower again, he is flagrantly wrong.

     The photo above was also taken this 3rd weekend in January of 2018. It shows two outstanding young Cuban television journalists -- Yisel Martinez Garcia on the left and Rosy Amaro Perez on the right. They are flanking singer Luna Manzanares who had just been interviewed about Luna's upcoming European tour. Such things are far more important to Cubans on the island than whatever Trump & Rubio are concocting against them in Washington, and Americans need to know that.

     The photo above was also taken this weekend in a TV studio in Havana. It says a lot more about Cuba in January of 2018 than what Marco Rubio says about Cuba from his mansion in Miami or his seat in the U. S. Congress. Rosy Amaro Perez is a talented, well-educated, and very influential television news anchor in Cuba. She is the mother of a gorgeous, lookalike 4-year-old daughter. Like most Cubans, she is passionate about baseball and music. And like most Cubans on the island, especially the highly crucial young-adult generation, Rosy Amaro Perez is ultra-passionate about her island, its people, and its hard-earned independence. I know that because I happen to know Rosy. She told me this week, despite natural and man-make hurricanes that powerfully and frequently target the island, "We are happy in Cuba."

And so......

as of January, 2018........

it's still Rosy Amaro Perez's Cuba...

Not Marco Rubio's.

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The USA's Cuban Reach

And Its Deleterious Worldwide Image!!
{Updated for: Saturday, January 20th, 2018}

     Long one of the top journalists in England, Colin Randall, 69, has been a key reporter for such newspaper/website giants as The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, etc. He and his wife Joelle have been to Cuba many times because they love the much-maligned island nation in the Caribbean sea. They learned that U. S. dollars are very useful in navigating around Cuba. This month -- January, 2018 -- Randall went to his London bank to exchange 175 British pounds for U. S. dollars. When the bank learned he was going to Cuba, it refused the translation, telling him, "It is a U. S. policy." Outraged, Randall said, "You're a British company! I am British! I'm going to Cuba, which is an independent country! Why are you imposing Donald Trump desires on me?" WHY, indeed? Non-Americans ask that question daily around the world.

     The outraged question British journalist Colin Randall posed to his British bank, -- Marks & Spencer -- is very pertinent, so pertinent, in fact, that the giant London newspaper The Daily Mail featured it in a major article written by Mark Wood.

     The article in the London Daily Mail this week used the above photo to stress an abhorrent international fact: America's Cuban policy since the Cuban Revolution ousted the vile U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in 1959 has been designed to appease only the most vicious Counter-Revolutionary exiles in the USA at the expense of everyone else, including 69-year-old British journalist Colin Randall and his wife Joelle. The London Daily Mail this week -- in mid-January of 2018 -- pointed out that this horrific situation has existed since 1960, the year U. S. President John Kennedy inherited the brutal, imperial Cuban policies that had been dictated by right-wing rogues in the Eisenhower administration -- such as Vice President Richard Nixon and the two Dulles brothers who were Eisenhower's most powerful cabinet members.

      As the above AP photo-caption cogently reveals, in 1960 -- in the first year of his presidency and the first year after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution -- President Kennedy was powerless to stop the above U. S. warplanes in an undeclared war from leaving bases in Florida to attack "Cuban fields with napalm-type bombs." The young President Kennedy had inherited those plans from the Eisenhower right-wingers.

   The young President Kennedy in 1960 had also inherited "OPERATION NORTHWOODS." As depicted above, that was the plan unanimously hatched by famed General Lyman Lemnitzer and his Joint Chiefs of Staff to, among other things, murder innocent Americans so those killings of innocent people could be blamed on Cuba and used as a pretext for a very savage military attack on Revolutionary Cuba.

      The young President Kennedy defied General Lymnitzer and the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the Operation Northwoods plan to murder innocent Americans so it could could be blamed on Cuba. But remember, for decades -- until such facts were revealed by de-classified documents -- Americans were told that the rogues who devised such plans were the GOOD GUYS and the Cubans were the BAD GUYS. Also, as shown by the photo above, other powerful U. S. generals and the CIA persuaded President Kennedy to carry through on other inherited plans from the Eisenhower administration to recapture Cuba -- including the April-1961 Bay of Pigs military attack that Cuba embarrassingly defeated but the generals and the CIA blamed the defeat on Kennedy. Then in October-1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the same powerful forces begged Kennedy as Commander-in-Chief to nuke Cuba and the Soviet forces on the island. It is still considered the closest the world has ever come to a nuclear holocaust but, in hindsight, Kennedy's decision to avoid a nuclear war through 8 scary days in October-1962 probably saved millions of lives for sure and perhaps billions. During this time when the young President was being besieged by his top generals and CIA kingpins like Allen Dulles, Kennedy was being more wisely and sanely advised by three great speech-writers, authors, and journalists -- Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ted Sorensen, and Pierre Salinger. Via those three legendary Kennedy aides we have learned that one day an exasperated President Kennedy screamed: "If I could I would blow the CIA to Smithereens!!" It is presumed that he lumped his top generals into the CIA bundle. And it was also from those three historians -- Schlesinger Jr., Sorensen, and Salinger -- that we learned that in November of 1963 -- just a few days before he took the fateful trip to Dallas -- that President John F. Kennedy told his most senior aides that, once he returned to Washington, his most urgent priority would be to normalize relations with Cuba.

      Of course, history registers the fact that on November 22-1963 America's popular young President, John Kennedy, returned to Washington from Dallas in a coffin. To this day, historians and conspiracy theorists debate not only who, along with the Oswald-Ruby known ties, were involved in the actual assassination but who were also the major forces that contributed to it or were slightly beaten to the punch by it. Those forces primarily today include the generals, the CIA, the Mafia, and Kennedy's Vice President Lyndon Johnson. In fact, newly de-classified documents in 2017 indicated that Kennedy's widow Jacqueline, who died in 1994, and his brother Robert, who was assassinated in 1968, both believed people close to Johnson killed their husband and brother. But it was also revealed anew in 2017 that Jacqueline's belief is contained in a paper that she ordered not to be published until 50 years after her death. Also, as indicated by the graphic above that shows President and Mrs. Kennedy in the fateful car in Dallas, it is generally believed that John Kennedy's murder or at least designs on his death related mostly to Cuban facts such as: Operation Northwoods, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the never-ending quest of Batistiano-Mafiosi remnants to overthrow Cuba's rebel-led government. Classifying...or hiding...documents and facts from the American people has hurt history and protected many criminals. For example, Operation Northwoods data was not de-classified until 1997, and that was many decades after Americans needed to know. And by 1997 there were two uncaring generations of Americans that simply didn't & don't give a damn.

     Of course, within minutes of President Kennedy's murder in Dallas on Nov. 22-1963, Cuba's revolutionary icon Fided Castro was blamed by the still-viable Operation Northwoods forces that had urged Kennedy to let them murder innocent Americans so it could be blamed on Castro. The publicity to blame Fidel was instantly buttressed by the well-known fact that the Kennedy brothers, John & Robert, had signed off on and assisted in many CIA-Mafia-Cuban exile assassination attempts against Fidel. Thus, it was easy to say Fidel had retaliated against Kennedy. But Fidel didn't live to be 90 by being either cowardly or stupid and his revolution hasn't survived all these many decades by being cowardly or stupid. Before dark on Nov. 22-1963 Fidel had informed the CIA, the FBI, and the U. S. State Department that his own well-respected intelligence operation would assist them in the investigations and that the U. S. could send experts to Havana to interrogate him, which the U. S. certainly did. To this day, no reputable source blames Fidel Castro for the assassinations of John Kennedy in 1963 or Robert Kennedy in 1968. But to this day, the usual suspects in addition to Oswald & Ruby are indeed still tied by reputable sources to the infamous murders.

       In 1960 the new President, John F. Kennedy, had a son named John F. Kennedy Jr. They are shown above in 1963 not long before JFK was murdered in Dallas.

     The above haunting image of JFK Jr. saluting his father's casket as it was being carried to Arlington National Cemetery to this day provokes tears across America.

     Awesomely handsome, intelligent, and starkly charismatic like his father, JFK Jr. could have been just about anything he wanted to be, including President of the United States. But, in another tragedy for the Kennedys and for America, JFK Jr. was killed, along with his wife and her sister, in a small plane he was piloting in 1999.

      While close family members famously blamed some famous individuals and some famously notorious groups for the murders of John and Robert Kennedy, the Kennedy family knew that Fidel Castro was not to blame and, in fact, Fidel had...for what it was worth...provided concrete evidence and clues as to who did it and who planned to do it. JFK Jr., in fact, told Fidel in phone calls how much he appreciated the Cuban Revolution and how much he hated the "criminal" Counter Revolutionary forces "operating freely" in the United States. And, in fact, JFK Jr. told that to Fidel face-to-face too. In the photo above, JFK Jr., in the middle, is introducing Fidel to a JFK Jr. friend that had accompanied President Kennedy's only son to Havana to meet a man -- Fidel Castro -- that JFK Jr. VERY DEEPLY ADMIRED.

     In Havana Fidel Castro hosted a dinner in honor of his famous visitor, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. As shown by the photo above, Fidel Castro and JFK Jr. sat directly across from each other so they could talk to each other throughout the meal.

       Indeed, if John Kennedy Jr. had not died in that plane crash in 1999, there is an excellent chance THAT TODAY he would be the successor to Obama as the President of the United States. And if that were so, regardless of how many Rubios and Diaz-Balarts there are in the U. S. Congress, THERE WOULD SURELY BE NO U. S. EMBARGO AGAINST CUBA nor would there be continuous Operation Northwoods schemes to justify assaults on Cuba that former President Obama and the entire world condemned 191-to-ZERO in the United Nations. Yes, JFK Jr. was "a good man" as he referenced in the above quotation. And no "good man" can justify such American history as Operation Northwoods or the still-current U. S. Embargo that was, according to de-classified U. S. documents, created in 1962 to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of Cubans on the island to induce them to overthrow their Revolutionary government. {To do what? To replace it with the U.S.-backed Batistianos again?}. But JFK Jr. is not the President of the United States in 2018. Donald Trump is. Thus, another generation of Batistianos is free to target Cuba and to concoct schemes designed to justify blaming Cuba for whatever it is they want to blame Cuba for, which is whatever benefits a plethora of revenge, economic, and political goals.

      Both the modern, current, and future history of the United States are entwined in the memories of three giant men -- the Kennedy brothers who were assassinated in the 1960s -- John while he was President and Robert while he was running for President --  and Fidel Castro who died at age 90 in Havana on Nov. 25, 2016. So, the three giants are dead and their 1963, 1968, and 2016 deaths...I believe...say a lot more about the United States today than they say about Cuba. And two things they say are this: {1} The Cuban Revolution, somehow, is still viable; and {2} Donald Trump is President of the United States and Marco Rubio is Trump's anointed Dictator of Cuba.

 What if...JFK Jr....had landed safely?

What if?

What if.............?

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