The Most Important Cuban

Her Name Is Ana!
{UPDATED: Monday, February 6th, 2016}

    The most important person in Cuba is Ana Teresa Igarza. 

       Most Americans have never heard of Ana, and that's Okay. But all of the ultra-powerful counter-revolutionaries in Miami and in Washington know Ana, and that's okay too. She is still Ana and she has emerged as the most important person on the vulnerable, pugnacious and beautiful Caribbean island.

     If Cuba is to survive the death of Fidel Castro, the nascent American presidency of Republican Donald Trump, the Republican and Batistiano-controlled U. S. Congress, and the Batista-like Banana Republic that has ruled nearby Florida since 1959, it's basically in Ana's capable hands. She is the Executive Director of Cuba's Special Economic Development Zone that encompasses over 300 acres built around the ultra-modern, deep-water Port of Mariel, which is about 30 miles southwest of Havana. Mariel is basking in a billion-dollar refurbishment largely financed by Brazil just before its Cuba-friendly, two-term President Dilma Rousseff was ousted in a coup-like impeachment engineered by unsavory forces, domestic and foreign, that didn't like her devotion to Brazil's and Cuba's poorest people. Ana has two plans for Mariel: {1} To make it the engine that puts Cuba on a sound economic footing despite the U. S. embargo that has existed since 1962; and {2} to stabilize Cuba's always very tenuous sovereignty that has barely managed to hang-on since the Revolutionary victory in 1959 but for centuries prior to that phenomenon it was under the imperialist might of foreign powers, namely Spain and the United States.

To be sure, Ana is a BIG fan of the Cuban Revolution.

Moreover, Ana fervently cherishes Cuba's independence.

 Economic viability, Ana believes, is vital to Cuba.

      Inspired by U. S. President Obama's brave and herculean efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, Ana convinced Cuban President Raul Castro that "We must take advantage of the window that Obama is giving us or this island will forever be just holding on or lose its independence altogether." That was three-and-a-half years ago. Since then, the soon-to-be-retired Raul Castro has put Cuba's diplomatic survival in the hands of the very capable Josefina Vidal and its economic survival...the key to everything...in Ana's hands. The photo above shows Ana, on the right, showing Obama's very impressed Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker around the refurbished Port of Mariel. But since then the friendly President Obama's most Cuba-friendly officials -- Pritzker, Kerry, Rhodes, Power, etc. -- have all been replaced by the unfriendly President Trump's Batistiano-friendly anti-Cuban zealots. Ana, knowing the "window" provided by Obama could quickly close with the startling election of President Trump, has tried to make the Obama-provided overtures as hard as possible for Donald Trump and the Batistianos in Florida and Congress to reverse.

       In this photo Ana is signing a deal in which a Russian company is investing in her Mariel Port Economic Zone. Russia, China and other U. S. competitors are convinced that Cuba is the pathway to stronger Caribbean and Latin America relations for far-flung U. S. competitors. Ana is willing to take advantage of that situation but she desires friendly relations with the neighboring U. S. superpower first and foremost.

      This photo shows Ana on the right answering questions at a news conference after she signed Mariel Port deals with Mexico and the Netherlands. The U. S. embargo of Cuba since 1962 has restricted Cuba's economic relations internationally because of the superpower status of the United States, which allows it to successfully fine, punish and threaten other nations that do business with Cuba, with immediate payoffs of fines if those foreign companies desire financial relations with America. So Ana has had to delicately navigate around the massive restrictions mandated by what historians and the United Nations consider the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a truly powerful nation against a weak nation.

      For the past two weeks Ana, shown above on the right at a news conference in Florida at the Port of Palm Beach, has been on U. S. soil seeking vital deals between her Mariel Port and key American ports. She was about to sign contracts with the ports of Palm Beach and Everglades till Florida Governor Rick Scott sent a last-minute Tweet threatening to cut-off state funds to those ports if they signed any deal with Ana. The Cuban-born boss at the Port of Palm Beach, Manny Almira, is shown on the left above. He was as dismayed as Ana at Governor Scott's belligerence and lack of respect for the economic and job benefits the Cuban contract would have meant to the Port of Palm Beach and to South Florida. The Sun-Sentinel, South Florida's top newspaper, also excoriated Governor Scott in a scathing editorial but since 1959 the state of Florida and since the 1980s the U. S. Congress have routinely caved in to any and all Cuban demands made by the most visceral counter-revolutionary Cuban remnants of the long-ago overthrown Batista regime...overthrown in Cuba but resurrected on U. S. soil. So Ana, on her otherwise successful mission to the U. S., like most Cuban-Americans such as Manny Almira, was stymied in what essentially amounts to America's very own Banana Republic headquartered in Miami and Tallahassee.

     An article in the Palm Beach Post reported that Ana Teresa Igarza "invited Florida Governor Rick Scott to visit Cuba" so he could judge it for himself. She made the invitation off-the-cuff after Scott's threat caused the Port of Palm Beach and the Port of Everglades to back-off deals with Ana, confirming that her power to make such decisions on behalf of Cuba did not require her to call back to Havana to get permission.

On the other hand, it appears that Florida Governor Rick Scott needs to get permission from anti-Cuban extremists in his state before he can or will make any major decisions, or threats, related to Cuba.

       And also, while she was in South Florida, Ana Teresa Igarza was aware that the major newspapers in South Florida -- with the exception, of course, of the Miami Herald -- took editorial stances excoriating Governor Scott for not considering the financial benefits Ana's proposal would afford Florida and its citizens. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel denounced Scott harshly but so did the Palm Beach Post and the Bradenton Herald. The Herald's editorial included this exact sentence: "Scott's threat puts Florida at a competitive disadvantage to ports along the Gulf Coast, East Coast, Caribbean island ports, and Central American ports -- which are signing agreements with Cuba." So even in South Florida, Ana Teresa Igarza easily won the moral battle against the extreme prejudice that exists against Cuba and against moderate Cuban-Americans among Florida officials dating back to the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

        Yet, the most important Cuban, Ana Teresa Igarza, returned to the island after a successful trade mission to the United States. The hugely important major ports of Norfolk, Virginia and Mobile, Alabama signed deals with Ana. And except for the obstacle presented by Florida's Governor Scott, all the other American and Cuban-American business and political executives she met seemed to support Ana's goals for Cuba, which she believes will greatly benefit Cubans as well as foreign companies investing in Cuba.

        Meanwhile, on the island of Cuba this Sputnik International photo reveals the hope of the Cuban people for the Obama-like friendly ties to the United States to survive the anticipated unfriendly reversals of the Batistiano-inspired threats from the new Trump administration in Washington. This photo shows the U. S. and Cuban flags side-by-side and looking out onto a Havana street from the very popular and privately owned La Moneda Cubana Restaurant. Left to their own devices and choices, the majority of Cubans and Americans want friendly relations between their two countries but those desires for decades have been held hostage by an unsavory few nestled permanently it seems in Florida and in the U. S. Congress. Sadly, the U. S. democracy, except for the window provided by the brave and decent President Obama, seems incapable of correcting that interminable situation, as Florida's Governor Scott reminded Cuban-American businessmen and Cuba's most important person, Ana Teresa Igarza, again this month.

        As so often happens, Sarah Stephens -- the head of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas -- had the wisest and most cogent comment regarding Governor Rick Scott's anti-democracy and anti-Florida rebuke of Cuba's Ana Teresa Igarza and Cuban-American Manny Almira this week. On her Website Friday-February 3, 2017, Sarah Stephens wrote, "When Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus folded its tent last month, 400 Floridians lost their jobs. Now, Florida's Governor Rick Scott appears determined to turn his state's drive for jobs into a Cuba policy clown show. When it comes to Cuba, Florida -- to put it mildly -- has always been a paradox unable to come to terms with itself. No state in the union has worked harder to impose sanctions on Cuba, and no state has benefited more from trade and travel with the nearby island." 

         By way of contrast to Governor Scott, Ana Teresa Igarza is Cuba's most important person because she is looking forward to trade and commerce that will benefit her people, not staring backwards motivated by revenge and greed. She says, "I want to help Cubans by helping people, the workers, in other countries, which in turn helps my people. My feedback on Mariel deals with businesses in Belgium, Mexico, Spain, Brazil and elsewhere is doing that, for their people and ours. I want someday to say the same about America."   

          A young and well-educated hydraulic engineer, Yanelis Tellez now works for Ana at the Port of Mariel. Yanelis says, "I was born and raised in Mariel. Now look at it! I'm proud of Ana and Cuba and of myself too." 

        The strategic location of Cuba's Port of Mariel along with its billion-dollar deep-water refurbishment has the potential to make it the centerpiece for increased commerce for the entire Caribbean region.

Cuba's Port of Mariel.

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Florida's Cuban Hypocrisy

Opposed by Most Floridians!

       This photo is courtesy of Desmond Boylan/AP and it reveals on Feb. 3-2017 how most Cuban-Americans and most businesses in Florida and the U. S. are battling Florida's extreme hypocrisy related to Cuba. The above photo shows American Airlines on Feb. 1-2017 opening an important office in Havana. In the center cutting the ribbon is the airlines' Regional Operations Manager Lorena Sandoval and to her right in the black dress is the airlines' Regional Sales Manager Christine Valls. The two women told the AP "We are extremely delighted this U. S. business with Cuba has reached the level of our needing an office in Havana." Second from the right is Gala Beltran, the airlines' Manager of Cuban Flights. American is one of nine U. S. airlines now making the first commercial U.S.-to-Cuba flights since 1961 as a part of President Obama's historic efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Beltran told the AP, "We cannot speculate what the new President Trump's next step will be, but I can assure you that we are moving our machine forward. You are a witness to the investment and how important Cuba is to America as a U. S. entity doing business." American Airlines has 13 daily flights to Cuba from Miami and Charlotte that land in the cities of Havana, Camaguey, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Santa Clara and Varadero. Beltran said American Airlines is currently training Cubans on the island so they will soon take over its office in Cuba, which he says has been "very cooperative."

     

    
    As more and more Florida businesses make plans to get deeply involved in commerce with Cuba, one key television station in Miami has become the first in South Florida to establish a bureau in Havana. WPLG Channel 10 is Miami's ABC-TV station and it regularly and enthusiastically sends unbiased reports from Cuba back to Miami, where the majority of Cuban-Americans eagerly favor President Obama's courageous openings to the nearby island. And, of course, most Florida businesses relish opportunities to make money and create jobs related to Cuban commerce.

WPLG's reporter stationed in Cuba is Hatzel Vela.

        This Feb. 1-2017 photo is courtesy of Richard Graulich/The Palm Beach Post. It also reflects how major businesses in South Florida are desperately trying to buck politics and sign deals with top Cuban commerce officials such as Ana Teresa Igarza. That's Ana on the right at this weeks's news conference in Palm Beach with Port of Palm Beach Executive Director Manuel Almira and Vice-Chair Dr. Jean L. Enright. The Port of Palm Beach was about to sign a major contract with Ms. Igarza UNTIL Florida's Governor Rick Scott, always beholden to South Florida's vast counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans, threatened both the Port of Palm Beach and the Port of Everglades if they did business with Cuba. That prompted a editorial in The Palm Beach Post assailing Governor Scott's hypocrisy in courting massive business with China while bowing to the minority but powerful anti-Cuban Cuban-Americans. The strong editorial stated: 

                   "This is a well thought-out growth plan led by Port of Palm Beach Executive Director Manuel Almira, who was born in Cuba. Ground was broken in July, 2016 on a $10.4 million mini-slip at the port's southernmost berth that could eventually serve as a base for cargo service to Cuba and boost local businesses. The economic potential deserves the state's support, not to be held hostage to politics of the moment. But Governor Rick Scott...has unfortunately lost focus when it comes to the state's doing business with Cuba." The editorial's reference to Governor Scott as a hypocrite related to his "hypocrisy" in eagerly seeking business with China while threatening to cut $920,000 in state funds if the Ports of Palm Beach and Everglades signed deals with Cuba. The hypocrisy also relates to China being a big boy while Cuba is a little island...but also to the fact that China never teamed with the Mafia to support a brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba and then China never allowed the overthrown Batista dictatorship to set up shop on nearby U. S. soil in South Florida and eventually extend its hypocrisy to the U. S. Congress.

        Florida Governor Rick Scott, shown here with Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 1989, seems quite typical of most powerful political figures in Florida as depicted by the editorial in The Palm Beach Post that assailed Governor Scott for his Cuban hypocrisy.

Ros-Lehtinen & Carlos Curbelo flanked by the Diaz-Balarts.

          Just in the last 48 hours American Airlines, the Port of Palm Beach, the Port of Everglades, WPLG-TV 10 in Miami, The Palm Beach Post and many other entities in Florida have tried or are trying to rise above a half-century of self-serving hypocrisy related to Cuba. Whether they succeed or not is probably more vital to America and to democracy than it is or will be to Cuba itself. U.S.-Cuba relations in Washington and in the American psyche are dwarfed by many other factors, including intimidation, but this fact remains: From an image standpoint, the only thing that could possibly get a unanimous 191-to-0 worldwide condemnation of the United States in the United Nations is America's HYPOCRITICAL CUBAN POLICY. Now chew on that basic fact while you contemplate the image above of the American Airlines jet on a smooth flight to Havana, Cuba.

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Cuban Regime Change, Uh?

In 2017, Finally?

     Meet Leonardo Padura. The photo is courtesy of Wikipedia. He was born in Havana in 1955 during the Batista dictatorship and he still lives in Havana. He is the type Cuban that Americans are simply not supposed to know, else they might question the Cuban narrative in the United States that the transplanted Batistianos have dictated since 1959, along with a U. S. Cuban policy also primarily dictated by the ousted but reconstituted Batistianos, especially after forming an indelible and mutually rewarding alliance with the Bush dynasty as early as 1959 but especially since the 1980s when Jorge Mas Canosa was anointed the leader of the Cubans-in-exile. From Batista-to-Canosa-to-Castro-to-today, Leonardo Padura stands tallest as the type Cuban we Americans are not supposed to know. For two generations now Americans have meekly allowed a small cabal of miscreants to dictate a Cuban policy that currently gets a 191-to-0 denunciation in the United Nations, which correctly and primarily blames everyday Americans because they pusillanimously permit it to exist.

       From his home in Havana, Leonardo Padura has evolved into Cuba's greatest journalist and author. His articles are carried worldwide by such venues as the New York Times and his books are available in Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Greek, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, etc., etc.

One of the best Leonardo Padura books.

        On this first day of February-2017, Leonardo Padura has penned the most insightful article about U.S.-Cuban relations and it comes at a crucial juncture -- the giddy, uncharted days at the start of the Donald J. Trump presidency. Trump's comments and tweets have convinced the Batistianos that, at long last, they will, in short order, regain control of Cuba. The aforementioned Padura article appeared this week -- Jan. 31-2017 -- in the New York Times with this intriguing title: "TRUMP, A CHEVY AND CUBA'S UNCERTAINTY." 

       This is the Chevy that Leonardo Padura referenced in this week's New York Times article. The photo is courtesy of Desmond Boylan/Reuters. The car, shown driving along Havana's famed seafront Malecon boulevard, is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air built in the U. S. and shipped brand-new to the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship almost two years before the Cuban Revolution chased Batista, the Mafia and greedy U. S. businessmen off the island. The Batistianos and Mafiosi, after the fall of Santa Clara in the closing hours of Dec.-1958, chose not to hang around Havana and fight the charging rebels because they already had shipped tons of loot to banks in Switzerland as well as to Mafia-aligned banks in Miami and Newark. And, of course, historians have documented that the last of the loot from Batista's Cuba, including gold bullion, had been stashed on getaway planes, yachts and ships that began to flee Havana by 3:00 A. M. Jan. 1-1959 for safer havens...such as nearby Miami as well as Dictator Trujillo's Dominican Republic, which was actually Batista's first stop. Left behind in Cuba, of course, were buildings, businesses, and other iconic items -- such as a plethora of 1950s American cars like the still-humming 1957 Chevy shown above.

      With that backdrop, I'll return to Leonardo Paduro's insightful New York Time's article entitled "TRUMP, A CHEVY AND CUBA'S UNCERTAINTY." The uncertainty concerns whether the nascent Trump White House -- aligned with a Republican-controlled Congress -- can or will gift the Batistianos will their long-craved regime change in Cuba. The Chevy in the article is owned by a 40-year-old Cuban entrepreneur that Paduro identifies as "R. P." R. P. inherited the car from his father and six years ago Cuba opened up private enterprises for budding entrepreneurs like him. R. P. revitalized the old Chevy and began making a living by driving tourists around Havana. It was a hardtop, not a convertible that the tourists much preferred. So R. P. spent his savings...$3,000...on what Padura called "reconstructive surgery" to make it a convertible. And now, thanks to the new entrepreneurial opportunities in Cuba buttressed by President Obama's efforts to circumvent the Batistiano-controlled Congress, the newly configured convertible is making money as tourism on the island exceeded four million for the first time in 2016...with more to come in 2017 unless a Trump-and-Batistiano-orchestrated regime change effort results in the expected guerrilla-style resistance. Padura points out that "American President Donald J. Trump threatens to role back Obama's newly restored relations. Now R. P. has no idea whether his business will continue to prosper or if he made the worst investment of his life." Padura writes, "President Trump is threatening this freedom, saying that either Cuba changes its political system or he will reverse Obama's stance." In his article, Padura makes it plain that, to him and other freedom-loving Cubans, the new threats from Trump and the Batistianos means that Cuba must either submit to a return of the Batista/Mafia-type rule in Cuba or...fight. He points out that Cuba has always been a massive underdog but won its revolution in 1959 and since then has sustained its sovereignty by withstanding, from the nearby world superpower, a record number of assassination attempts, a military attack in 1961, terrorist attacks including coastal cannon-fire shellings of fishing villages as well as hotel and civilian airplane bombings, and since 1962 history's longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed on a weak country by a powerful country. In referencing those facts, Leonardo Padura in this week's New York Times wrote: "The Cuban government withstood those assaults, but it was the Cuban people who bore the brunt of the sacrifices and suffering."  

        Cuba's most honored and renowned journalist and author, Leonardo Padura, is not just blowing smoke in this week's New York Times article. A lifelong but well-traveled resident of Havana since 1955, Padura wonders if the Trump presidency and the rejuvenated Batistianos in Miami and Congress will in 2017 fulfill their threats of a regime-change in Cuba. The Batistiano narrative in the U. S. since 1959 has justified all of its unmerciful counter-revolutionary assaults on Cuba as being strictly against the government while claiming to support everyday Cubans on the island in their quest to return democracy to the island. To Padura in Cuba and to at least brave and insightful Americans in the United States, that is a joke...and all the nations of the world, with that 191-to-0 vote in the UN, agrees it is a joke. Re-read Padura's sentence: "The Cuban government withstood those assaults, but it was the Cuban people who bore the brunt of the sacrifices and suffering." The American people are supposed to believe that the Batistianos and Mafiosi chased out of Cuba in January of 1959 were Mother Teresa-type angels by the time they regrouped, richer and stronger than ever, on U. S. soil. Padura believes that's a lie that has been perpetrated in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave since 1959...and so do brave democracy-lovers around the world. 

        This bucolic Havana Times.org photo correlates to this week's searing article penned by Leonardo Padura. It reminds us that three generations of innocent Cubans "have borne the brunt of the sacrifices and suffering" heaped on them by a U. S. policy designed since the 1950s to appease the offshoots of the long-ago ousted U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. The topical photo shows a young Cuban mother feeding pigeons while her gorgeous little girl sits behind her posing gorgeously for the photographer. That mother, that mother's mother and that mother's little girl comprise three generations of totally innocent Cubans on the island who have been punished by a rich and powerful minority hiding behind the skirts of the nearby world superpower, while the majority of Americans seem not to have the guts, the intelligence or the patriotism to even acknowledge what Padura wrote about and wants to stop. The entire world in unanimity also wants it to stop. Yet...as Leonardo Padura hinted in this week's New York Times...the U. S. democracy, severely weakened by the transplanted Batistianos, seems incapable of correcting that abomination. The little Cuban girl in the orange outfit above is not America's enemy and neither is her mother or her grand-parents, and they should not be treated, all their lives, as if  they are.

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Cuba's Obama-Trump Saga

Leaves Cubans Re-targeted!!

      President Obama's Ambassador to the United Nations was Samatha Power, a skilled, democracy-loving diplomat. Like other key officials in Obama's administration -- such as Secretary of State John Kerry and top adviser Ben Rhodes -- Ms. Power was deeply embarrassed that America's Batistiano-fueled Cuban policy was opposed by all the nations of the world, especially including America's best democracy-loving friends. In her Oct. 26-2016 UN speech above, Ms. Power made a brilliant explanation as to why she, on behalf of America, could not vote to support the United States' own Cuban policy, specifically the U. S. economic embargo that, since 1962, has been the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. THUS, now registering around the world in resounding unanimity is the 191-to-0 UN vote starkly condemning America's Cuban policy. YET, the Batistiano control of the U. S. Congress means that the universally denounced policy remains mostly intact despite Obama's two-term presidency that still has a vastly superior approval rating to Donald Trump's Republican regime that now takes over a Batistiano-slanted White House to align with what already was a Batistiano-controlled U. S. Congress.

        President Trump's Ambassador to the United Nations is Nikki Haley, who had been the Tea Party-powered Governor of South Carolina. The contrast between Ms. Haley and Samantha Power is equivalent to shutting off a bright light to create pitch darkness. Ms. Haley has zero diplomatic experience and, apparently, she is a massive supporter of America's Cuban policy that rightfully gets that 191-to-zero denunciation in the UN. During the presidential campaign Ms. Haley's first choice was Marco Rubio and, after his wipe-out in the Florida primary, her next choice was Ted Cruz. In campaigning for Rubio and Cruz, Ms. Haley lavished scorn on Donald Trump's candidacy, mocking and belittling him at every turn. Now, incredibly, she is Trump's Ambassador to the UN, replacing a truly brilliant diplomat, Samantha Power.

    The Democracy-loving head of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas, Sarah Stephens, has worked tirelessly the last ten years to promote sanity and decency regarding America's Cuban policy. Needless to say, she is dismayed that top Obama officials -- such as Power, Kerry, Rhodes, etc. -- have been replaced by their polar opposites -- such as Nikki Haley, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Top Strategist Steve Bannon, etc., in the Trump administration. On her Cuba Central Website January 27-2017 Ms. Stephens posted and denounced vehement anti-Cuban comments by the likes of Steve Mnuchin at his Senate hearing. But most of all, Ms. Stephens seemed to lament the stark contrast of a Nikki Haley replacing a Samantha Power as the U. S. UN Ambassador.

       Nikki Haley has made her first speech at the United Nations. She made headlines -- as noted above -- with the surly comment, "For those who don't have our backs, we're taking names." Her threat apparently was not aimed at BIG BOYS like Russia or China who don't have America's backs but at little perceived, make-believe threats like...Cuba. At least, that seems to be what the democracy-loving Sarah Stephens thinks.

      On her Jan. 27th Website, Sarah Stephens pointedly stressed the difference between Obama's Samantha Power and Trump's Nikki Haley at the United Nations. Ms. Stephens directed her readers to the complete video of Samantha Power's historic Cuban speech at the UN. Then Ms. Stephens contrasted that speech with Nikki Haley's Batistiano-loving comments made during her Senate confirmation hearing.

        This photo shows Nikki Haley answering softball questions during her Senate hearing that resulted in her easy confirmation as President Trump's Ambassador to the United Nations, a further indication that the nexus of a Republican-controlled U. S. Congress with a Republican White House is a lot more dangerous than having a decent, pragmatic Democrat like Barack Obama in the White House. Simple questions to Nikki Haley at her Senate confirmation hearings resulted in scary right-wing answers, scary for Cuba for sure but also for the United States and maybe the world. 

                 EXACT SENATE QUESTION: "Do you agree that after more than a half a century the U. S. embargo against Cuba has failed to achieve any of its principle objectives?"   
               EXACT NIKKI HALEY ANSWER: "We should be clear about a few things. The goals of the embargo was never to cause regime change, but rather to raise the cost of the Cuban government's bad behavior." 
               Note: That stupid, right-wing answer got this exact reply from the democracy-loving Sarah Stephens: "That's just wrong, as the BBC and a million other reputable sources confirm." In addition to those "million other reputable sources," a plethora of declassified U. S. documents plainly posted on the U. S. National Archives website supports Ms. Stephens, of course. A declassified U. S. document from 1962 clearly states that the purpose of the embargo was to bring about regime change in Cuba by creating hunger situations and other dire deprivations on the Cuban people to induce them to rise up and overthrow their Revolutionary government. 
                 EXACT SENATE QUESTION: "Do you agree that the U. S. should help support private entrepreneurs in Cuba while training or providing other assistance, so they can build a business, market their products and services, and compete with state-owned enterprises?" 
                EXACT NIKKI HALEY ANSWER: "Unfortunately, Cuba does not have private entrepreneurs and working independently is not a right but a privilege granted only to supporters of the regime." 
                Note: That stupid, right-wing answer got this exact reply from the democracy-loving Sarah Stephens: "That was a whopper, as the Voice of America and a vast historical record shows." Right-wing and other Batistiano sources in the United States feel perfectly safe in making such ridiculously self-serving statements decade after decade because, via intimidation or the apathy of American citizens, they have dictated the Cuban narrative in the United States almost since January of 1959 when the Cuban Revolution chased much of the leadership of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship to U. S. soil. Also, incredibly, a handful of Batistianos aligned with the necessary handful of sycophants in the 535-member U. S. Congress have easily enacted whatever laws they desired to hurt Cuba and to enrich and empower themselves -- such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, Helms-Burton, the Torricelli Bill, etc. Thus, for decades and continuing to this day virtual pipelines of dollars flow from Washington to Miami to support the most visceral and even terroristic counter-revolutionary actions while also lavishly funding, decade after decade, vast counter-revolutionary propaganda machines such as the Miami-based Radio-TV Marti boondoggle. 

       But even in Miami most Cuban Americans, unlike Tea Party darlings such as Nikki Haley, want a sane, democratic, Obama-like approach to Cuba. The ABC television station in Miami, Channel 10, has a fair-minded reporter stationed in Cuba, much to the chagrin of the Batistianos and right-wingers who, for decades, have been able to buttress their lies about the Batista dictatorship and Revolutionary Cuba by maintaining a Congressionally mandated law that prohibits everyday Americans from visiting Cuba, a freedom that, all these decades, all other citizens of the world have enjoyed. That, perhaps, helps account for the 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations of America's Batistiano-driven Cuban policy. 

       The reporter in Cuba for Miami's ABC-Channel 10 is Hatzel Vela, who had been a fine reporter for the top television station in Washington, WTOP. Reporting back to Miami, Vila is quite remarkably unbiased.

       And now Hatzel Vela, a Nicaraguan native, is a fine reporter stationed in Cuba for Miami's ABC Channel 10. When the democracy-loving Sarah Stephens said there were "a million reputable sources" disputing Nikki Haley's grossly distorted statements about Cuba at her Senate hearing, one of those sources would be Hatzel Vela at Miami's ABC-TV station. On Jan. 27-2017 Mr. Vela's report from Cuba showed he had no problem finding newly successful entrepreneurs in Cuba, a fact that counter-revolutionaries in the U. S. deny as a means of supporting their Cuban embargo that the rest of the world considers the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. Mr. Vela's report featured Ruben Valladares and his wife, two of the thousands of Obama-orchestrated Cuban entrepreneurs. Ruben and his wife started a printing business -- Adorgraf -- in their home and one element of it has grown into a $300,000-a-year business that now employs 37 other Cubans; now Adorgraf is looking to purchase a larger building to house their expanding  and profitable enterprise. But Ruben told Hatzel Vela that he does have one major complaint: Because Obama could not remove all the cruel elements of the Congress-mandated embargo, Ruben says he and his wife cannot purchase certain materials they need to expand their business even more than their ingenuity has already expanded it. Nikki Haley and her ilk, if they watched Hatzel Vela's report from Cuba, would probably have, at least, enjoyed that portion of the report.

    Despite decades of gross distortions by the likes of Nikki Haley and decades of counter-revolutionary Cuban laws easily dictated by a mere handful of miscreants in the 535-member U. S. Congress, there is no denying that America's Batistiano-directed Cuban policy has grossly harmed two generations of totally innocent Cubans in all 14 of its provinces. Cuba's mere survival as an independent nation has gained the island tons of strong international respect while America's Cuban policy has done more over an extended period than anything else to harm America's worldwide image. {What else in a diverse world could possibly attain a 191-to-0 UN vote other than America's Cuban policy?}. That belligerence has kept Cuba in a pugnacious defensive posture trying to protect its hard-earned sovereignty even as the richest and leading remnants of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship, supported by right-wing imperialists in the U. S. Congress and in Republican White Houses, lurk ominously just beyond the island's Caribbean waters.

        This map spotlights Wyoming, the least populated of America's 50 states. Nikki Haley's comments at her Senate hearing conjured up an analogy that reminded me of my fondness for Wyoming...its expansive beauty but also its brave pioneering of so many democratic principles, such as women's rights, as America was spreading westward after the vastness of Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase from France.

        My Nikki Haley-reminded Wyoming analogy precipitated thoughts of a distinct Cuban-related possibility. Let's say...some miscreants were booted out of Wyoming when they strongly disagreed with Wyoming becoming the first state that allowed women to vote and to hold public office. And then those fleeing miscreants re-settled elsewhere...say, Newark or Miami...and got elected to the U. S. Congress, perhaps by usurping or strong-arming the democratic process. Then...say...those miscreants wanted to pulverize Wyoming to sate their revenge, economic and political motives. In the 535-member Congress, it seems, they wouldn't need much help to execute their Wyoming scheme -- maybe just tapping on a few shoulders such as Jesse Helms and Dan Burton lookalikes and saying, "Hey, buddy, if you support my Wyoming bill I'll support your Bridge-to-Nowhere bill so you can reward your biggest donor back in your district." Of course, in such a scenario that Wyoming bill would unleash torrents of tax dollars to both pulverize Wyoming and to enrich the miscreants and...OH, YES!!...the Wyoming bill would include a provision prohibiting Americans from visiting the state so they couldn't judge it for themselves and thus would be forced to accept the miscreant's generally unchallenged narratives about nice Wyoming.

      Now as you contemplate my Cuban-Wyoming analogy, also contemplate the above very enlightening photo. It was taken by Agency France Press the day a very, very reluctant President Bill Clinton was obligated to sign the infamous Helms-Burton Act into law, a Batistiano bonanza that greatly increased the island of Cuba's status as a punching bag and piggy-bank for benefactors in a foreign superpower. Uh, yes...Nikki Haley's comments in the Senate and democracy-loving Sarah Stephens' reactions to those comments reminded me that my very beloved Wyoming could suffer Cuba's fate...uh, legally, of course!!

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Cuba CAN Survive Trump

Here's How!!!

        If you study the Jewish man depicted in this AP-Evan Agostini photo, you can begin to comprehend why Revolutionary Cuba might well survive the Trump presidency. Jason Greenblatt has been named Trump's "Special Representative for International Negotiations." As innocent as that designation looks, it is extremely good news for Cuba and for the millions of democracy-lovers who sincerely want former President Obama's sane Cuban politics to withstand the new configuration that finds a Republican in the White House to team with Republican control of both houses of Congress. The longstanding Republican alliance only with the most zealous counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans finally was severely contested by the just-concluded two-term presidency of Barack Obama. President Trump's anti-Cuban rhetoric and his more-heralded appointments of counter-revolutionary zealots convinced most observers that Obama's sanity regarding Cuba would soon be overwhelmed by Trump's insanity. But one man -- Jason Greenblatt -- may have just enough sway with Trump to counter the whole passel of counter-revolutionary benefactors.

        When President Trump gave a thumbs-up to Jason Greenblatt as his administration's chief international negotiator, it immediately tempered what many had considered the stranglehold the visceral Miami members of Congress and other ultra-influential counter-revolutionaries like Mauricio Claver-Carone had on Trump's Cuban policies. Yes, Jason Greenblatt is uniquely influential when it comes to final-decisions rendered by the businessman Trump and, perhaps, he will now be similarly influential with President Trump. And Mr. Greenblatt is a democracy-lover who would like to see the Obama-fueled efforts to normalize relations with Cuba continue during the administration of his boss, President Trump.

       For the past two decades Jason Greenblatt has been Donald Trump's most trusted associate. That now is likely to continue in the White House. Mr. Greenblatt grew up in Queens, New York as the son of Hungarian Jewish refugees. He graduated from New York University's Law School in 1992. For two decades he has been the Executive Vice-President and Chief Legal Officer for Mr. Trump's vast business empire. Mr. Greenblatt is the father of six teenage children and the three oldest are 18-year-old triplets. The Greenblatt family has two key websites that stress close ties to Israel and...Cuba. One site stresses close ties between Cuban and American teens with words such as: "We are of Cuban heritage...our grandfather was born there...and we are seeking to form deeper connections with Cuban teens." Other comments by the Greenblatt family websites expressed euphoric support for President Obama's herculean efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, calling Obama's Cuban policies "a really fascinating time in history." 

        With the Trump White House now including Jason Greenblatt, it appears that the scary overload of counter-revolutionaries on the Trump transition team and in the Trump cabinet MIGHT NOT run roughshod over Obama's historic rapprochement with Cuba. Mr. Greenblatt and his aides have been to Cuba on business missions for Trump in 2012, 2013 and as recently as 2015. Cuba Ventures Corp., a Canadian company that is a true expert on Cuban issues, points out that Trump, encouraged by Greenblatt, has always been intrigued with "hotels, resorts and golf courses in Cuba when it is legal to do so." Greenblatt is reported to be "deeply embarrassed for America" over such things as the 191-to-0 repudiation in the United Nations of America's Cuban policy and presumably he will use his considerable influence in the Trump White House to try to "recoup and resuscitate" America's international image that has "suffered so terribly" from "the right-wing tilt" to its Cuban policy. The powerful counter-revolutionary segment of the American media that longs to impose its will on Cuba is upset over Greenblatt's White House position. For example, the Miami Herald blared this headline: "Trump Picks An Orthodox Jew to Lead Cuba Negotiations." 

        If this Orthodox Jew, Jason Greenblatt, can persuade President Trump to continue Obama's sane approach to Cuba, Trump might indeed "Make America Great Again," or at least make democracy-loving Americans like Mr. Greenblatt {and his six teenage children} less embarrassed about the worldwide condemnation of America's Cuba policy. From a business standpoint and an image prerogative, Mr. Greenblatt believes the U. S. should "not keep shooting itself in the foot for another half-century" to appease a small, ferocious and self-serving minority. So, it appears that the addition of Mr.Greenblatt to the Trump White House can represent a shining light brightening what looked like another dark tunnel.

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