The sole publisher of Cubaninsider, Rich Haney, has passionately studied Cuba day and night since the 1980s and he has visited the island. He is a fiercely pro-democracy conservative Republican from Virginia and he believes the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba say more about the United States than they say about Cuba.
The U. S. presidential election in November-2020 resulted in replacing Republican Donald Trump with Democrat Joe Biden in January of 2021. It was and is more important to Cubans in Cuba than Americans in America. That's because, perhaps, the survival of Cubans in Cuba ismore than at stake regarding who is the the U. S. President. The Republicans are tightly tied to the most extremists counter revolutionary Cubans in Miami's powerful Little Havana community while the Democrats, the other half of the USA's two-party political system, are not --at least not TOTALLY!!!
As illustrated by this Vanity Fair photo, the two-term Barack Obama presidency that included Vice President Joe Biden for all 8 years DIRECTLY preceded the presidency of Donald Trump that arrived in January-2017. During the Obama-Biden presidency Obama, with Biden's help, bravely and uniquely normalized relations with Cuba, greatly helping all Cubans in Cuba and almost of the Cuban-Americans in the United States, but angering some powerful U. S. Cubans. So starting in January of 2017 the Trump presidency, at the behest of Little Havana, began reversing every one of the sane and positive Cuban policies enacted by the Obama-Biden presidency, and most unbiased Cuban experts believe that Trump has, in the past four years, enacted the most genocidal Cuban policies of all the Republican U. S. Presidents since the 1950's, including the 1952 Republican U. S. White House that, incredibly, teamed the U. S. democracy with the Mafia to support the brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba, which spawned the victorious Cuban Revolution that drastically changedboth Cuba and the United States starting on January 1, 1959.
For sure, Cubans in Cuba were glued to television and social media devices as that waited with abated breath hoping that Joe Bidenwould be elected President of the United States, and they rejoiced when it happened back in November.ANY Democrat replacing a Republican as U. S. President would have pleased Cubans in Cubabut replacing Trumpwas ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT to Cubans in Cuba. But will the election of Joe Biden end up as just another disappointment for the Cubans-in-Cuba, the only people in the world who are forced to face the COVID-19pandemic while alsofacing the longest and cruelest EMBARGO/BLOCKADE ever posed by a powerful nation against the masses of people in a much smaller nation.In that milieu, I believe that America's best Cuban expert in Washington, Emily Mendrala, is the best American to consult regarding that prediction/question about whether Biden in the White House will treat Cubans in Cuba better than Trump has.
In the United States today Emily Mendrala is the best expert you can depend on for the best updates on U.S.-Cuban Relations. Now a mother of two children in Washington, Mendrala graduated from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia. During the Obama-Biden presidency she was a key National Security Advisor on International Matters and, most particularly, she was Special Advisor to President Obama and to Senator John Kerry on Cuban Affairs. And for sure, as December of 2020 is about to turn into January of 2021, Emily Mendrala knows more than anyone about what is now happening between Cuba and the U. S. and what is likely to happen in the forseeable future!!
After being a key advisor to President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Senator Kerry regarding Cuba, Emily Mendrala is now the Executive Director of the Washington-basedCENTER FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAS.
As the powerful and loving leader of the influentialCenter for Democracy in the Americas, the brilliant Emily Mendrala continues to strongly advocate for normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba. In fact, she has just made sure that President-elect Joe Biden has gotten A POWERFUL WRITTEN STATEMENT reminding the incoming U. S. President why theCENTER FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAS believes it is vital to Democracy in America and in the Americas for the U. S. to normalize relations with Cuba. Please read Emily Mendrala's statement below. It was her prelude to an exceedingly long statement she sent to powerfullyadvise the upcoming Biden presidency to return the United States to Obama-type Cuban policies...for the sake of Cubans, Americans, and Democracy!!!!!
In other words, thanks to the impetus from the brilliant and decent Emily Mendrala, the upcoming Biden administration has a brilliant and decent roadmap for U.S.-Cuban Relations that has been compiled by both the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas and the Washington Office on Latin America...two decent and insightful organizations thatare not controlled by the dictates of Little Havana counter revolutionaries.
Since 1492 when Columbus discovered first Cuba and then the United States, neither scholarly nor decentPERSPECTIVES have prevailed in U. S.-CUBAN RELATIONS. Both of those aspects have been regularly shoved aside and replaced by greed...and by revenge for the Cuban Revolution's victory in 1959, the loss at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961, and for all the other reasons for not recapturing Cuba in the last six+ decades. All that has also been coupled with other dastardly things involved in U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1898 Spanish-American War that was fought on Cuba soil so the U. S. could gain control of the Caribbean's largest island from Spain; and especially since 1952 when the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba; and especially since 1959 when the Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the Batista dictatorshipand thus creating Little Havana in Miami on U. S. soil. And all the back tothe birth of the United States in 1776 only one U. S. President, Obama, has treated Cuba with scholarly decency. Now on the eve of 2021 we must wait to see if Obama's Vice President Joe Biden will use the Biden presidency to add some scholarly decency to U.S.-Cuban Relations. This Biden Tweet indicates, probably Not!!!
As you can see above, back on May 15-2020 at 5:12 PM while campaigning against Trump for the Presidency, Joe Biden spoke of Cuba like the Piggybank pawn like some Democratic presidents have often called the island when it is politically or economically expedient to do so. So slapping Cuba in the face because it was put on the UN Human Rights Council may or may not be what Biden really feels overall about Cuba.
Then, as you can see above, at 4:05 PM on Nov. 16, 2019, Joe Biden hadTweeted his strong support for Jose Daniel Ferrer, who is a virulent dissident that Cuba claims is funded and supported by both Little Havana and by with tax dollars via the U. S. government. Most everyday Cubans have posted on Facebook and other Social Media outlets video they have taken showing a big black U.S.-owned SUV picking up and letting out Jose Daniel Ferrer at places in Havana while he was with the top diplomat at the Trump-curtailed U. S. Embassy building in Havana. Cuba claims, and the everyday Cubans seem to wholeheartedly agree, that Cuba allows dissidents to protest their govenment as long as theyare not paid by"a foreign government," meaning the United States. There are indications Joe Biden, although being purely a product of the Cuba-friendly Obama presidency, can be easily persuaded to throw Cuba under the bus if it becomes politically expedient after his inauguration on January 20th, 2021. Judging by the two aboveTweets, it appears that Joe Biden will take his Cuban directions and directives from high-profile and supposedly well-funded dissidents in Cuba and in Little Havana while ignoring the opinions or concerns of everyday Cubans on the island, even while Cubans in Cuba now ubiquitously use Smart Phones and Computers to speak-up freely, pro or con, on major Social Media internet forums.In other words, except for the Democrat Obama, every U. S. President has viewed Cuba as a political and economic tool to be exploited by rich Amerians.
In March of 2016 President Obama became the first U. S. President to visit Cuba since President Herbert Hoover arrived in 1928 in a warship to bully Cuba. And in Cuba President Obama had the guts, the intelligence, and the decency to go live on national radio and television to tell the Cuban people: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." It was a sincere promise and the Cuban people believed him, andObamaat least tried to deliver on his promise.
But then in January of 2017...incoming President Donald Trump shook hands with outgoing President Barack Obama. That very month the Cuban families in Cuba began to again "fear" the United States. They knew the Republican Trump would turn over the USA's Cuban policies to the extremist Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Little Havana. But even in January of 2017Cubans in Cuba did not believe that Trump would expand the cruel six-decade-old U. S. Embargo into a genocidal Blockade...but, without a whimper from either the American people or the mainstream U. S. media, that is precisely what Trump did when he activatedTitle III of the Little Havana-writtenHelms-Burton Act. Not even the two-term George W. Bush presidency, which was totally-aligned with Little Havana, would enactTitle III because even Bush considered it too GENOCIDAL to impose on masses of TOTALLY INNOCENT Cuban families.BUT TRUMP ACTIVATED TITLE III!!!
And so next month -- January of 2021 -- President Joe Biden will inherit both the infamous Little Havana-writtenHelms-Burton Act, which now includes the "X" for"Genocide" since Trump activated the provision,Title III, that even President Bush refused to activate because even Bush considered it to be too genocidal to impose on innocent Cuban families. Above you now see the "X" attached to Congress's legally mandatedHelms-Burton Act. And also note that the illustration above shows that the Cubans in Cuba well know the meanings ofHelms-Burton andTitle III even as the United States, with the very long Pinocchio nose, lies to the world and to the American people about it.
AND SO...................as Trump is replaced by Biden as President of the United States in less than a month from now, will America's Pinocchio nose regarding Cuba get shorter or stay about the same????? My guess is: I think it will get a little shorter, but not BY MUCH. That's because there is just too much money and too much political power to be gained by keeping the USA's monumental Pinocchio-nosed Cuban laws in place...even with a Democrat,Mr Biden, in charge of the White House beginningnext month!!
While staunchly battling the USA's Trump-orchestrated genocidal Blockade to starve and overthrow its revolutionary government, Cuba was also forced to closed its airports and borders to its vital tourism industry over seven months ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But now with Trump now a lame-duck U. S. President until Januaryand with a handle on the COVID virus, Cuba has resumed beckoning international tourists, especially those from Cuba's favorite country --Canada. Now four international airlines -- Air Canada, Sunwing, Transat, and OWG -- all headquartered in either Montreal or Toronto -- are again flying Canadians to their beloved Cuban beaches, especially Varadero and the five Cayo beaches off the north-central Cuban coast.
Based in Montreal, Canada's newest airline --OWG -- today, Dec. 18-2020, made its inaugural flight to Cuba.
Starting this week,OWG will make Cuban beaches a prime destination for its flights from Montreal and Toronto.
Canada's newest airline,OWG, has a fleet of Boeing 737-400 airplanes and its initial flight to Cuba today landed at Abel Santamaria International Airport in Santa Clara. The 150 Canadian tourists were then taken to their beloved soft, white beaches at Cayo Santa Maria.
While, of course, there are many nations that bow to the USA's unique economic and military might, Cuba depends on fiercely independent countries likeCanada to ignore America's six-decade Embargo that the Trump administration has been allowed to expand into what is meant to be a genocidal Blockade. Thus, Cuba...as it tries to exit the COVID-19 pandemic...also hopes that EXITING from the Trump administration in Washington will also enable it to exploit its uniquely beautiful and enticing tropical beaches, such as the Santa Maria beach that Canadians are enjoying this week.
Canadian Max Riverton: "Soft sands, marvelous weather, and the Caribbean's nicest people. I love Cuba."
Today is December 16th, 2020. It is the FOURTH BIRTHDAY in Havana forGerardito andAmbar. The adorable twins are the children of Gerardo Hernandez and his wife Adriana. Because of their parents,Gerardito andAmbar are integral parts of the tumultuous historic and topical relations between Cuba and the United States.
You see, the now 55-year-old Gerardo Hernandez is the most famous of the five Cubans who are known to history as theCuba Five. The photo above takes us back to mid-December of 2016 when the twins, Gerardito and Ambar were born. The little girl in the middle above is Gemma, shown as she is trying to touch her newborn sister Ambar who was being held by Gerardo. Gemma was born in Havana on January 6, 2015 while Gerardo was serving a sentence of two life terms plus 15 years in a U. S. federal prison in California...while the other four members of theCuba 5 were serving long sentences in four other separate U. S. federal prisons. In Havana Adriana knew that her husband Gerardo was destined to die in his California prison. But she desperately wanted to give birth to Gerardo's biological baby.Yet, the U. S. government refused Adriana's pleas to even visit California to merely see Gerardo and surely there was no chance of a conjugal union.But...two important Americans -- President Barack Obama and Senator Patrick Leahy --did listen to Adriana's pleas. Obama & Leahy arranged for Gerardo's sperm to be flown to Havana from his prison cell in California. It was used to impregnate Adriana!!!!!! And on January 6, 2015 the little girl Gemmawas born!!!!!!
So these two men -- Senator Patrick Leahy and President Barack Obama -- have had the most guts and power to do the most decent input in the long history of U.S.-Cuba involvements. They are shown above aboard the presidential aircraft Air Force One on their flight to Havana in March of 2016, near the end of Obama's two-terms/8 years as President. In Havana Obama and Leahy reopened the U. S. Embassy in Havana for the first time since 1962 and did many other brave and decent efforts to normalize relations with Cuba.Of course, one of the things these two men did was to arrange for Gerardo Hernandez's sperm to be flown from his California prison all the way to Havana to impregnate his wife Adriana whose baby turned out to be the now 5-year-old little girl named Gemma.
On March 31th, 2020, Senator Leahy turned 80-years-old and his friend, former President Obama, was beside him to watch him cut his birthday cake. Born in 1940 in Montpelier, Vermont, Mr. Leahy has represented that state in the U. S. Senate for six 6-year terms, since 1974. During his political career, Senator Leahy has displayed more intelligence, more guts, and more decency related to U.S.-Cuba relationsTHAN ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING. A mother of three children in Havana named Adriana Hernandez is among the people what have been blessed by the decency and astuteness of Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
A powerful movie named"WASP NETWORK" is now powerfully showing on the ultra-powerfulNetflixnetwork. It tells the gripping story of the Cuba 5. The superb cast includes Penelope Cruz. And Gael Garcia Bernal plays Gerardo Hernandez whose twins Gerardito and Ambar turned 4-years-old today {Dec. 16-2020} in Havana.
Above is aYou Tube video that discusses and shows some of the scintillating highlights from the movie "WASP NETWORK".
In Little Havana, Miami, and in all Republican political circles, theCuba Five remain pariah's of the HIGHEST ORDER.
But in Havana and in all of the island of Cuba, theCuba Fiveare heroes of the HIGHEST ORDER. Cubans honor them daily because they consider their bravery in going to Miami to observe groups and individuals was because they believed there were elements there planning to commit terrorist acts against innocent Cubans, and theCuba Fivethen would inform the U. S. FBI about the information they discovered. After being arrested, theCuba Five were sentenced in a Miami federal courtroom to exceedingly long prison sentences...only to finally being incredibly released and returned as super-heroes to Cuba thanks to the amazing efforts of President Obama and Senator Leahy.
And so...that's why/how the most famous of theCuba Five, Gerardo Hernandez, who served 16 years in a California federal prison, incredibly was released from his two life terms+ 15 years sentence thanks to the efforts of President Obama and Senator Leahy. This photo shows Gerardo and his wife Adriana in Havana with their three children -- 5-year-old Gemma and the twins Gerardito and Ambar. Today -- Dec. 16th, 2020 -- is the 4th birthday for the twins.
This gorgeous photo showsGerardito kissing his sisterAmbar on their Fourth Birthday today -- Dec. 16, 2020.
The truly amazing saga of howGerardo Hernandez's three children got to be born in Havana surely constitutes one of the greatest episodes in the amazing history ofU.S-Cuban Relations. And, incredibly, that story is brilliantly told in the movie depicted above --"WASP NETWORK" now showing onNetflix.
In the 1950's the world's strongest criminal organization, theMafia, and the world's strongest nation, theUnited States, supported the brutal Luciano-Lansky-Batista dictatorship in Cuba, a mere 90 miles from Florida.
On January 1, 1959 theCuban Revolution led byFidel Castro shocked the world by defeating theU.S.-backed andMafia-backed Luciano-Lansky-Batista dictatorship in Cuba.
With massive amounts of money and plenty of firepower, plus the continued support of the U. S. government, beginning in January of 1959 the former leaders ofHavana quickly overwhelmed nearbyMiami and createdLittle Havana on U. S. soil. The expectation was that it would take a few weeks, or only a few months at least, to recapture Cuba. Almost seven decades later, that effort is ongoing...although generations ofLittle Havanaleaders have amassed massive wealth and political power within the bowels of the U. S. government.
From January of 1959 until today -- in December of 2020 --Little Havana has dictated the political and social narratives regarding Cuba, including the island's historic and topical relations with the United States. As far as the USA is concerned, the mass of everyday Cubans in Cuba don't have a right to have a voice about their form of government, only self-serving people in the U. S. like Humberto, shown above, have that right. In that vein, Americans have been told how wonderful it was that, in the 1950s, their U. S. Democracy linked up with the Mafia to support the brutal, thieving Luciano-Lansky-Batista dictatorship in Cuba so rich U. S. individuals and companies could partake in the rape and robbery of the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island nation.Of course, since 1959 Americans have been told what a great government Cuba had prior to the Revolution and, of course, that Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 has been the worst, most brutal, and most corrupt "regime" in the world.FOR EXAMPLE, U. S. propaganda about Cuba rules the roost:
Of course, any Counter Revolutionary Cuban, or their sycophants, can use the Internet or the U. S. media to blare any lie about Cuba that he/she chooses, and expect it to stick. Therefore President Obama's decency towards Cuba that was followed by Trump's genocide have constituted primary lies shoved down the throats of American citizens for the past sixteen years....and that has been typical ofLittle Havana's grip on the USA's Cuban narratives since 1959.In other words,Michael Bustamente's headline should have said: "Cuba's Dissident Protest Shows Need For Less US Engagement." AndMichael Bustamente's sub-headline should have said: "As Honest, Respected Journalist Tracey Eaton Poignantly Proves, Massive U. S. Tax-Dollars Fuel The Dissident Movements in Cuba."
In this month of December-2020, Tracey Eaton -- the USA's most respected journalist when it comes to honest and insightfuljournalism related to Cuba -- continues to publish the most factual and most important articles regardingHavana-Little Havana andCuba-U.S. relations. For example, in the article above Tracey Eaton explains that the "The Democracy business in Cuba is bustling." {NO KIDDING!!!}. It has been that way for over six decades but especially in recent years, meaning that Americans and Cubans in the U. S. and Cuba are awash in tax U. S. dollars...supposedly to bring "DEMOCRACY" to Cuba. Of course, after the Spanish-American War in 1898 until the 1950s the U. S. dominated Cuba and had a chance to make sure the island had the greatestDEMOCRACY the Caribbean had ever seen. And, yes, I am talking about the United States that teamed with the Mafia in 1952 to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship that was so extremelybrutal that it spawned thevictorious Cuban Revolution. Even though the great journalist Tracey Eaton is a beloved Journalism Professor at Flagler College in Florida, hisCUBA MONEY PROJECT blog remains the best and only chronicler of theextreme amounts of U.S. tax dollars devoted to Counter Revolution dissidents in the United States and Cuba. Using precise numbers and names acquired via the Freedom of Information Act, Tracey Eaton regularly attaches the exact money down to the pennies that is routinely handed out UNCHECKED to dissidents and a plethora of knownandunknown anti-Cuba projects...and, of course, often in front of the pennies there are literally millions of dollars.
Of course, withLittle Havana -- from 1959 throughout 2020 -- having control of the Cuban narratives in the United States, including the mainstream U. S. media, Americans are not supposed to consult Tracey Eaton's brilliant and important articles posted regularly by hisCUBA MONEY PROJECT updates!!! But democracy lovers and U. S. taxpayers, I believe, should be allowed to know how many of their hard-earned tax dollars end up in the vast LET'S RECAPTURE CUBA piggybank. Long ago, it seems, recapturing Cuba became LESS IMPORTANT than making tons of U. S. dollars on just TRYING to recapture Cuba!!! I assume that theLittle Havana andWashington politicians believe that the taxpayers or too stupid or too afraid to object, and any objecting, in any case, would not likely be worth trying.