How Rubio Shames USA

As Well as DEMOCRACY & FLORIDA!!
{Friday, April 5th, 2019}

    The Tampa Bay Times is the best newspaper in Florida and one of the most-read and respected newspapers in America. Its major Editorial this week, I believe, should be read by every Democracy-loving American. Permit me to explain why.
    The primary contribution to the U. S. Democracy and to decency this week by the Tampa Bay Times is entitled: "Editorial: Don't Cut U.S.-Cuba Baseball Ties." From that simple headline, Florida's best news source in Marco Rubio's home-state goes on to excoriate Rubio for "punishing" totally innocent people in Cuba to sate his apparently insatiable appetite for revenge but, of course, mostly to enhance his economic and political fortunes by catering to a handful of rich Counter Revolutionary extremists from his  Batistiano-dominated home area -- Little Havana in Miami.
  Well known for trying to starve everyday Cubans on the island by leading the Trump administration's insanely cruel tightening of the six-decades-old economic embargo, Rubio uses any excuse to "punish" innocent Cubans on the island -- even including the recent totally sane and decent agreement between the USA's Major League Baseball teams and Cuba's corresponding pro baseball league.
    The Tampa Bay Times, obviously fed-up with Rubio's incessant cruelty, included these exact quotes in this week's important pro-democracy/pro-decency excoriation of Rubio's blatant and moronic attempt to block the U.S.-Cuban baseball agreement: "The deal could be unraveling, thanks in part to the backward politics of Sen. Marco Rubio. It is too bad but entirely predictable that Rubio is hurting  that effort. Sen. Rubio is foolishly attacking it. This is a humanitarian mistake that only punishes innocent families."
      And beyond Rubio's cruel insanity related to baseball, the Tampa Bay Times Editorial also excoriated Rubio for being primarily responsible for "punishing" totally innocent Cuban "families" by tightening the already-stifling U. S. economic embargo that has existed since 1962 although in 2016, the last year of the Obama presidency, it correctly, with President Obama's approval, got the U. S. condemned by a worldwide 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations. But that insanely cruel embargo persists decade-after-decade because the USA is the world's economic dynamo AND because the USA has more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world. The Tampa Bay Times Editorial, clearly aware of Rubio's leadership in tightening the insanely cruel embargo, added this condemnation of Rubio: "The U. S. trade embargo was a failure, and Cuban Americans of all ages recognize the need to move on." Of course, such anti-Democratic "FAILURES" as the embargo have been DICTATED for six decades by a handful of Cuban exiles from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that brutalized and ransacked Cuba from 1952 till it was overthrown on the first day of 1959, which chased the Batista-Mafia dictatorship to its new capital -- Little Havana USA.

Marco Rubio Little Havana Supporters.

    This week's blistering Editorial in the Tampa Bay Times very correctly eviscerates Marco Rubio being allowed to continually "punish" totally innocent Cuban "families" on the nearby vulnerable island, but just as importantly it is a reminder of the vulnerability of the U. S. democracy itself and it should, I think, make Americans ASK this question: How could a handful of extremist exiles from a brutal foreign dictatorship, from generation-to-generation, relocate on U. S. soil, hide behind the skirts of the U. S. government with the help of a handful of self-serving sycophants, and use the attempts to recapture their former country to get richer and more powerful while also dictating U. S. laws and U. S. narratives to "PUNISH" generations of totally innocent "FAMILIES" in that much smaller and weaker sovereign nation??? Of course, cowardly and unpatriotic generations of Americans and Cuba-Americans since the 1950s, coupled with an increasingly ineffective and propaganda-obsessed mainstream U. S. media, are EVERY BIT as culpable as massively unsavory benefactors like "Sen. Marco Rubio." But, at least, this week's exemplary EDITORIAL in the Tampa Bay Times shines a beacon of light on the Little Havana threat to the United States -- including both its democracy and its reputation. BUT WHAT POSITIVE EFFECT WILL SUCH A POWERFUL AND MEANINGFUL EDITORIAL HAVE ON ERADICATING THE LINGERING CANCER THAT HAS AFFECTED THE USA SINCE 1959? Unfortunately, very little...I'm afraid.

      After all, the Miami Herald -- Marco Rubio's hometown newspaper -- has also eviscerated and excoriated Rubio for insanely "punishing" totally innocent "families" in Cuba while also "punishing" the majority of decent Cuban-Americans in Miami who desire a sane relationship with their cousins on the island. As illustrated by the photo/graphic above, the Miami Herald invited four "female Cuban entrepreneurs" on the island to pen a blistering attack on Rubio. Those Cuban mothers had created successful businesses on the island thanks to the decency of former U. S. President Obama when Obama tried his best to loosen the embargo. But when the latest Republican President, Trump, put Rubio in charge of PUNISHING AND RECAPTURING CUBA, those Cuban mothers and entrepreneurs were blind-sided by Rubio. In their scathing Miami Herald article, the Cuban mothers explained that Rubio was preventing them from continuing to make honest livings to take care of their children. And, as you can see in the above photo-graphic, those mothers BEGGED Rubio to as least meet with them to hear their pleas in person. Of course, Rubio doesn't have the guts or the decency to do that.

    While Rubio won't listen to decent Cuban mothers on the island, Rubio stays in close contact -- on the phone and in his Senate offices -- with the top Cuban dissidents, and Rubio is surely not adverse to showering dissidents like Yoani Sanchez with tax dollars if they promise to help his regime-change schemes.

   While the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid of Little Havana to criticize Rubio, the VERY BEST investigative journalist in Washington, Ken Silverstein, is gutsy enough and talented enough to have penned what many consider the VERY BEST bio of Rubio.

    The Ken Silverstein bio of Rubio is easily Googled and it begins by stating that Rubio is "head and shoulders" above all the other politicians in Washington "when it comes to corruption and chicanery." The Silverstein research is minutely documented by dates, time, places, and names...and as far as I know no one has ever challenged it or sued it. Rubio's Little Havana originally included in his Senate bio the beneficial but bogus claim that his parents escaped the tyranny of Castro's Cuba for the freedom of Miami, till it was pointed that Rubio's parents left Batista's Cuba before anyone considered Castro's revolution a threat to the Batista dictatorship.

Above, a false inhouse Rubio bio.

      The journalist in charge of Miami's influential Progreso Weekly is Alfaro Fernandez. He knows Miami's Rubio as well as he knows the back of his own hand. The Progreso Weekly's depiction of Rubio is revealed by the  two Editorial graphics below.

     When a Marco Rubio can routinely take charge of the USA's Cuban policies in any Republican presidency...such as Trump's...there is obviously something drastically and perhaps fatally wrong with the U. S. democracy. And that is so, I sincerely believe, because two once-treasured institutions charged with protecting the world's greatest democracy -- citizen voters and the mainstream media -- have collectively evolved into unpatriotic cowards.

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Cuba-US Cooperation

How IT HELPS Everyone!!
{Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019}

       This photo is courtesy of Karen Marshall and WGBH News in Boston. It shows the working room at Finca Vigia {Lookout Farm}, the home in Havana where the great ERNEST HEMINGWAY spent 20 years writing his greatest novels. This photo shows how THE HEMINGWAY FOUNDATION, founded in 2002 by young U. S. Congressman Jim McGovern, has FINALLY been beautifully renovated thanks to rare U.S.-Cuban cooperation during a Little Havana-directed Republican presidency. This cooperative example should set a precedent.

     The 59-year-old Jim McGovern has dutifully represented Massachusetts in the United States Congress since 1997, and he's surely one of the most effective and decent politicians in Washington. He firmly believes that U.S.-Cuban relations should be cordial and normal to benefit everyone, and he opposes the 6-decades-old U. S. pattern of allowing a handful of revengeful Cuban exiles and their self-serving sycophants to dictate USA narratives and laws that only benefit them -- financially, politically, and revengefully. But that  is precisely WHY the decent opinions of many members of the U. S. Congress  like McGovern are never aired in the mainstream U. S. media, even including the scared left-wing networks and newspapers that are trying so hard to impeach the latest anti-Cuban/pro-Little Havana {Miami} Republican President Donald Trump. Yet, in the last few days Jim McGovern has shown PRECISELY how cooperation between Cuba and the United States can benefit everyone.

    Thanks to Congressman Jim McGovern, Ernest Hemingway's old home {above} in Havana has been completely renovated with the United States and Cuba joining forces to make it happen. The historic home known as Finca Vigia {Lookout Farm} was where Hemingway spent 20 of his prime years as an author, and where he wrote classic novels such as "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea."

    The legendary Ernest Hemingway committed suicide in 1961 very shortly after he returned to the U. S. but to this day he remains a legend for the 20 prior and very productive years he lived in Cuba. Because his former home and favorite bar are huge tourist attractions, the fiercely Counter Revolutionary Cubans in the U. S. Congress -- especially Rubio, Diaz-Balart, and Menendez -- fiercely opposed the Jim McGovern-led efforts to restore the Ernest Hemingway home in Havana.

     Now thanks to Cuba-U.S. cooperation, Americans lucky enough to get around the 6-decades-old U. S. embargo of Cuba can get to see up-close Ernest Hemingway's actual bed in Havana from 1940 till 1961.

    What American would not like to visit Havana and see the typewriter that Ernest Hemingway used in his writing heyday?

     What American would not like to sit in the same chair Ernest Hemingway sat in during his days in his beloved Havana home?

     And what American would not like to sit beside a life-like image of Ernest Hemingway at his favorite bar known as El Floridita in Old Havana {Habana Vieja}?

    In the early days of Revolutionary Cuba, Ernest Hemingway and Fidel Castro were friends. Hemingway said that Fidel "listened...sometimes."

     After serving Massachusetts and the USA in the U. S. Congress since 1997, 59-year-old Jim McGovern has finally gotten the USA and Cuba to cooperate on a major restoration campaign involving the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Havana. Way back in 2002 McGovern met and got permission from Fidel Castro for the project. The photo above shows Jim McGovern in Havana meeting with Cuba's new President, the island's former Education Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel. Now Jim McGovern, after his Hemingway success, is battling the handful of powerful Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans for other much-needed U.S.-Cuba cooperation. FOR EXAMPLE, Cuba has a lung cancer drug that top U. S. cancer experts want for their patients; Cuba has a diabetes drug that has proven to prevent diabetic amputations; Cuba has a long-standing environmental program that has produced some of the world's cleanest and most pristine beaches and waters while the nearby state of Florida has had to declare a drastic EMERGENCY because of a deadly algae-virus-pollution along Florida's shores; etc; etc.; etc.!!! BUT GOOD LUCK CONGRESSMAN MCGOVERN. America and Democracy VERY BADLY need more US. & Democracy-loving politicians like you.

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The Top Cuba Update

For the Last Weekend in March!!
{Monday, April 1st, 2019}

    With even the mainstream U. S. media too timid to report fairly on Cuban issues, there are notable international sources not so intimidated. Thus, I think the most interesting update related to Cuba the very last weekend in March-2019 was published in print and online by the London-based The Guardian. The headline is: "Google Revealed As Unlikely Go-Between To Help Trump-Cuba Relations." And the sub-headline is: "Tech Firm Has Acted As U.S.-Havana Intermediary As Memo Says Cuba Trusts Google More Than Trump Administration." 

      The insightful article in The Guardian last weekend used the above Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images photo to illustrate the important update. It shows Google and Cuba signing a new Internet deal this week, this time to enable Cuba to get an underwater optic cable that will greatly increase the island's Internet connectivity and conductibility. The Guardian says Google and then CEO Eric Schmidt began working closely with Cuba during the Obama presidency in 2014 and has maintained a Google office in Havana. Now even the Trump presidency can't stop the world's Internet superpower from aiding Cuba. Trump, for example, has personally met with Google's new CEO Sundar Pichai in the hopes that the USA, via Google, will be able to ward off the Cuban aspirations and efforts of China and Russia, both of whom are trying to be the foreign power most involved in expanding Cuba's already FAST-EXPANDING Internet and Social Media activity. Cuba telecom company, ETECSA, has quickly signed up 5 million Cuban customers and the island now has WiFi hook-ups all across the island...all with Google's considerable and continuing help.

     And so, not surprisingly during this last weekend in March-2019, I think London's The Guardian had the best update on important news related to Cuba. And you can Google the entire article Online.

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Cuba Loves UK AND Google

And THEY LOVE CUBA Too!!
{Saturday, March 30th, 2019}

    During an historic 4-days this week -- from Sunday through Wednesday -- Prince Charles, the future King of England, and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, enjoyed a splendorous and productive visit to Cuba. This Chris Jackson/Getty Images photo shows them enjoying a Mojito at The Habanera, a privately owned restaurant/bar in a private home {these are known as paladars}.

  This Chris Jackson/Getty Images photo shows Prince Charles making his own Mojito as Camilla admires his enthusiasm and skill. Asked Thursday if she wanted to go back to Cuba, Camilla instantly replied, "YES! And not later than TOMORROW!!"

     These Cubans were honoring the British flag this week during the visit of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.

   This Yamil Lage/Getty Images photo chronicles another good moment in Havana this week. Cuba's telecom company ETECSA signed another important deal with GOOGLE, which has had an office in Havana since 2017. With Luis Adolfo Iglesias representing ETECSA and Brett Perlmutter who is already in charge of GOOGLE'S office in Havana, the two companies agreed to speed-up Internet connectivity but first Cuba needs to install a new undersea fiber-optic cable. Once finished, it will  then be free and very cost-effective for Cuba because now Cuba must pay a third country for Cubans to connect to Google.com and YouTube but the Cuba government is quickly making the Internet accessible for all Cubans to do so. ETECSA has five million customers and now there are WiFi hookups all across the island.

    Almost all Cubans now have access to Smart Phones and Internet hook-ups and the Cuban government is trying hard to make the connections even easier. The island's new President and former Education Minister, Miguel Diaz-Canel, has made Internet accessibility on the island a major priority...and the results are astonishing.

     In his first year as Cuba's President, Miguel Diaz-Canel has held important meetings with Eric Schmidt, the top boss {CEO, President, Chairman} of GOOGLE, the Internet Superpower. They met first in Havana and then, as shown above, Mr. Schmdt hosted Diaz-Canel at GOOGLE'S New York City headquarters where the Cuban President was introduced to dozens of other major American business executives. {Most U. S. execs, farmers, and ports -- including every port in Florida --  want to do business with Cuba}.

  This Ramon Espinosa/AP photo shows GOOGLE boss Eric Schmidt signing an Internet deal with Cuba's Mayra Arevich Marin, the President of ETECSA. While President Diaz-Canel has dire Counter Revolutionary enemies in Miami and in all Republican administrations, he also has some direly important USA friends, like Eric Schmidt, the top boss at GOOGLE. After a new deal was signed Thursday in Havana, GOOGLE and ETECSA engineers are already working together to get that new undersea optic cable in working order to make Cuba's Internet connectivity faster, more efficient, and cheaper...and already Cubans have suddenly become furious fans of GOOGLING and using the social media sources, especially Facebook and YouTube.

     Of course, having close friends like Eric Schmidt at Google and Prince Charles in the UK helps Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel somewhat offset his dire enemies in Miami and in Washington, such as Marco Rubio. And, yes, already Diaz-Canel has met with Prince Charles in London back in November and this week in Havana.

    And make no mistake about it, a strong majority of Cubans on the island strongly support their President, Miguel Diaz-Canel. Born after the triumph of the Revolution, he rose politically outside Havana as an educator and then served as the nation's Education Minister. Yet, his idol is the late Fidel Castro and he possesses revolutionary fervor regarding Cuba's sovereignty, which he says was "only attained in our 5th century due to the historic victory over U. S. imperialism by the Cuban Revolution at the beginning of 1959." Diaz-Canel, for Cuba's sake, desires a peaceful political and trade relationship with the United States..."the same as most Americans and Cuban-Americans want, but the Republican party in their 2-party system blocks what would benefit both Cubans and most Americans." The photo above was posted Thursday -- March 28, 2019 -- by Havana's popular and influential television News Anchor Rosy Amaro. It shows President Diaz-Canel assisting his wife Lis Cuesta down some tricky airplane steps. Among his edicts as President, in addition to sharply boosting Internet accessibility, Diaz-Canel has told his most important Ministers and six Vice Presidents, 3 of whom are women, "to appear regularly on Cuban television and radio programs to let the people know how, and if, you are working on their behalf...because they can judge whether we are doing that or not."

    It may come as a shock to Americans who have never been to Cuba, but Rosy Amaro is not reluctant to criticize the Cuban government, including President Diaz-Canel whom she strongly supports. If Rosy thinks everyday Cubans are not being treated fairly...she has fired off her criticisms both on her state-owned television station and on social media. For example, she once sharply rebuked the General Manager at the iconic state-owned Nacional Hotel when she learned that a Cuban working at the hotel was charged a fee to take his family on a visit to the hotel's popular garden, which is a favorite of fee-paying tourists. The GM at the hotel then sent Rosy a LONG letter, which she posted in its entirety on her Facebook page. The GM explained that her sharp criticism was warranted and would be corrected. The best way to know Cuba is to ignore what Counter Revolutionaries and anti-Cuban Republicans say and get to mingle with Cubans on the island, as the UK's Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall did this week.

AND OH, YES....................

     ...............the smart, feisty, talented, and well-educated News Anchor, Rosy Amaro, has a five-year-old daughter. And Rosy is totally convinced that Marco Rubio is lying when he claims he will take better care of little Cuban girls on the island than their Cuban mothers are doing and plan to continue doing. Americans paid it no mind but Cubans are still infuriated over a boastful Tweet that Rubio sent to President Diaz-Canel -- "see you soon." It was Rubio's way of telling Diaz-Canel that President Trump had given Rubio the financial and military wherewithal to recapture Cuba on behalf of Rubio's Little Havana stalwarts in Miami. It's highly possible, maybe even probable. But that doesn't mean that Cubans like Rosy, who have traveled widely and have close relatives and friends in the U. S., won't stay on the island and resist...even in the manner of history's all-time greatest female revolutionary fighter and leader:

Celia Sanchez, guerrilla fighter.

Revolutionary leader, Celia Sanchez.

Defender of children, Celia Sanchez.

The legend, Celia Sanchez.

And CELIA SANCHEZ, the historian.

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Cuba and the US Media

A USA Shame , MOSTLY!!

      An excellent broadcast journalist, Hatzel Vela is a top reporter for the top news source in Miami -- WPLG-TV 10. Hatzel is stationed in Havana and, from there, he files regular reports back to Channel 10, the ABC Network station in Miami...where the Little Havana neighborhood since 1959 has led the massive and unchecked effort to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that then sent many of its richest anti-Castro zealots to their new capital, Little Havana. With that backdrop, knowing that even the mainstream national U. S. media is much too afraid to report fairly on Cuban issues, I have been surprised that Hatzel Vela actually files regular fair and balanced reports from Cuba to Miami's best television station.

      In fact, yesterday -- March 27-2019 -- to illustrate my respect for Hatzel Vela's televised reports from Cuba to his MIAMI television station, I shared at the top of my Facebook page Vela's March 27th report on the historic visit to the island this week by the UK's future King, Prince Charles. I mentioned that Vela's reporting from Cuba "is unhindered by the Cuban government." Within a few minutes, Hatzel Vela in Cuba posted two quick "likes" on my Facebook page, one for his approval of my comment and one for sharing his actual WPLG-TV 10 report related to Prince Charles.

     MY POINT IS THIS: As a democracy-loving American, I am not happy that Little Havana since 1959 has been allowed to CubaNIZE the U. S. government in a harmful manner, meaning that the perpetrators have been a handful of only the most extremists exiles and their self-serving sycophants, not the vast majority of Cuban exiles nor decent USA politicians. And, to my mind, the most grievous CubaNIZED assault on the U. S. democracy has been its Mafia-like intimidation of the mainstream U. S. media, whose free and fair-minded functionality is vital to all the basic tenets of Democracy. So, therefore, you can understand why I appreciate the fact that at least one prime news sources even in Miami -- WPLG-TV 10 -- and at least one journalist -- Hatzel Vela -- have the integrity and the courage to actually report FROM Cuba BACK to Miami. If Vela can do that, why can't the mainstream national U. S. media do the same thing, which is something the American people need -- namely, both sides of the two-sided U.S.-Cuban conundrum.

     So, for a fair USA report from Cuba on the important Prince Charles Visit to Cuba this week, GOOGLE the Hatzel Vela/WPLG-TV report from Cuba-to-Miami on March 27th. Or tap the 3-minute video report above by Vela from Cuba back to Miami on April 5, 2018 to get an example of fair U. S. journalism related to Cuba. In this video, Vela explains to his viewers in Miami that the overtures to the island made by former President Obama enabled private business owners in Cuba "to flourish despite a lack of materials." This report revealed the vast potential Cuba has if the foreign superpower, the USA, would work with everyday Cubans instead of grossly handicapping them with Little Havana's malevolent 1996 Helms-Burton Act that grossly exacerbated the 1962 U. S. Economic Embargo against Cuba, the longest and cruelest Embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a much weaker nation. And if you watch Hatzel Vela's 3-minute report above, you will better comprehend the gutlessness of the latest Republican administration, TRUMP'S, to follow Obama's decency by indecently turning America's Cuban policies back over ONLY to Little Havana's most extremists Counter Revolutionaries. In other words, any democracy-lover who doesn't comprehend the malevolent indecency involved in the transition from OBAMA to TRUMP is either an idiot or a coward. And that is precisely why I believe fair-minded reports that provide Americans both sides of the U.S.-Cuban conundrum, such as the Hatzel Vela Cuba-to-Miami reports, are so important, if rare, in the U. S. democracy that has taken SO MANY HITS from Little Havana.

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