The U.S.-Cuban Tango

And Why It Matters!!
{Updated: Tuesday, September 26th, 2017}

       Relations between the United States and Cuba have been significant to the entire world almost as far back as 1492, and that was the year Columbus discovered both nations. That's a truly amazing fact, especially in modern times, because the U. S. is the world's economic and military superpower while Cuba is merely a nearby island in the Caribbean. But that conclusion is a fact nevertheless because the superpower since the 18th century has lavishly and often salaciously coveted the lush island.

      But incredibly, the unending David vs. Goliath tug-of-war between little Cuba and mighty America has, through the centuries, been an incredibly even tussle.

      Especially since 1959, the seminal year the Cuban Revolution shocked the entire world by becoming the first nation to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship, the U.S.-Cuban Tango has had world-wide repercussions...starting with the realization that if little Cuba could shed a brutally corrupt U.S.-backed dictatorship, perhaps so could they. That unique fact became even more indelible in far-flung places like Africa and Iran but, more pointedly, throughout Latin America when little Cuba's reputation permeated and even dominated nations like Nicaragua, Chile, and Brazil. The AFP graphic above is highly important because it chronicles the U.S.-Cuban Tango from 1959 till today with little Cuba, amazingly, still a sovereign nation although the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba from 1959 till today has been retrenched in the U. S. fervently trying to use the readily available economic and military might of the United States to recapture the island. Since 1959, as the above graphic indicates, Barack Obama has been the only U. S. President with the guts and patriotism to seriously challenge the Batistiano-Mafiosi dictation of America's Cuban policies...and, when he was President, Obama not only visited the island to show respect for the targeted Cuban people but he also inflamed the dangerously biased Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders when he had friendly telephone and face-to-face talks with Cuban President Raul Castro, promising Cubans they did not need "to fear" America.   

     In that milieu, President Barack Obama defied the Batistiano-controlled U. S. Congress by bravely using Executive Powers from 2014 through 2016 to alter, change or end grossly undemocratic anti-Cuban laws mandated by Congress for decades. Obama reopened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961; he eased the restriction whereby Americans had long been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba; he allowed U. S. businesses to do commerce with Cuba; he allowed U. S. travelers to Cuba to return with some Cuban products, including cigars and rum; and he ended some U. S. laws, such as the infamous Wet Foot/Dry Foot boondoggle, that grossly discriminated against everyone else while being designed to enrich and empower selected Cubans in the United States.

     America's Cuban policies have been selfishly dictated since 1959 by typical Mafiosi tactics -- such as terrorist hotel, airplane and car bombings that, for example, killed an Italian tourist that dared to visit Revolutionary Cuba; blew a child-laden Cuban civilian airplane into the ocean, murdering all on board; and silenced the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami after he had openly objected to such unchecked terrorism. While such things also to this day have kept the mainstream U. S. media from criticizing such terrorism, the brave President Obama, as the Steve Sack-Minneapolis Star Tribune Editorial Cartoon above aptly describes, looked aghast at the age-old half-century of mayhem in the name of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!

    And that brief capsule of U.S.-Cuban relations brings us around to today's U.S.-Cuban Tango that features such things as CNN vs. Donald Trump. Yes, the Obama presidency by law could only last two terms covering 8 years. Obama was a decent, patriotic and brave President, a Democrat in a two-party system. It so happens that Obama was replaced by a Republican President, Donald Trump. It is universally agreed that the 70-year-old Trump, a multi-billionaire businessman and reality TV star, was not qualified to be President of the United States. Yet, enough Americans were so tired of what they considered an entrenched, bought-and-paid-for political establishment in Washington that they voted for Trump-the outsider non-politician as opposed to the only other choice, the Democrat's long-established and openly perceived bought-and-paid for candidate Mrs. Clinton, whose husband had been perceived as, among other things, bought-and-paid-for for two previous presidential terms. And so, with the unqualified President Trump in the White House, CNN and the rest of the left-wing U. S. media, instead of blaming themselves for making Trump the President and instead of waiting till the 2020 election to unseat him via the election process, have mounted an undisguised and relentless media coup to overturn the 2016 election of Trump. That conspiratorial coup also includes multi-billionaire giants such as MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. In other words, it might succeed. In the meantime those media giants 24-hours a day -- in print, online and on the air -- use undisguised propaganda to paint Trump as, among other things, the meanest American in history and the biggest single threat to America, Democracy, and the entire World. I too oppose Trump but unlike his media enemies I respect America, Democracy, and the Office of President. Therefore, while Trump might well be the biggest current threat to Cuba,  I don't think Trump is the biggest threat to America, Democracy, and the World. I think Jeff Zucker is.

       For example, as of Monday, Sept. 25th, 2017, President Trump is losing a battle against the NFL, the pro football league worth many more billions than Trump is and more powerful than the U. S. government is. This is because Jeff Zucker and the other left-wing extremists who control the mainstream U. S. media are proving what a fantastic propaganda machine the media has become. If any of the first 44 U. S. presidents -- from Washington through Obama -- had criticized anyone or any entity for defaming or disrespecting the U. S. flag or the U. S. national anthem, both the U. S. media and the U. S. public would have applauded that President. But not today and not Donald Trump.

         Wealthy pro football players began kneeling during the playing of the United States national anthem showing utter disrespect for the country that make them rich and famous. It has now -- even at an NFL game played in London on September 24th-2017 -- become a nationwide politically correct phenomenon loudly spurred on by the mainstream media, especially when it's a firestorm denouncing President Trump.

           A sports anchor on ESPN, taking full advantage of her politically correct status, made widely heralded non-sports headlines by proclaiming Trump a "white racist," implying -- again socially and politically correctly -- that only white men are racist.

          A soon-to-be NBA billionaire who was born rich in the USA {because his dad was an NBA star} gets plaudits from the media for disrespecting President Donald Trump, the office of President, and the U. S. capitalist democracy that made him, from birth, super rich. Prior to unrelenting media-saturated propaganda orchestrated and promulgated by left-wing extremists like Jeff Zucker, disrespecting the flag, the national anthem and the office of President would surely not have been in vogue.

         In 2017, the first year of his presidency, Time Magazine named Trump its Person of the Year. But Time, like Jeff Zucker's CNN, is owned by the ultra-liberal Time-Warner. Being a liberal, I get Time delivered to my home each week. But, like Zucker's CNN, Time is an integral part of the media conspiracy to now oust Trump, which I believe should be left to democracy. The Time I received today -- dated "October 2, 2017" -- as always is strewn with anti-Trump and left-wing extremist articles. For example, on Page 21 a major article written by Belinda Luscombe has a large photo of a 45-year-old black woman. In bold lettering the sub-title is: "The University-bound Mother Who Killed Her Child Deserves Forgiveness." The mother had killed her 4-year-old son; she got out of prison two days before she began her quest for a Ph.D at New York University. It seems that "folks at Harvard" and other extreme left-wing entities had smoothed many paths for her. Any white mother who had beaten her 4-year-old son to death and buried him "in the woods" would not have been treated that way. But because such racism is now routine, extremists making up for gross pass injustices to one race by grossly discriminating against another race...as the Time-Warner empire that includes Jeff Zucker is doing...may well be paving the way in the USA for a second Civil War or a second Revolution.

      In glorious years past, Donald Trump and Jeff Zucker were bosom buddies in the rarefied atmosphere of the rich, the famous, and the ultra-powerful in America.

      But it so happens that Donald Trump became President of the United States and Jeff Zucker became President of CNN with total say-so regarding CNN's news coverage and news personnel. Zucker is now the leader of the vast media conspiracy-coup designed to dethrone Trump long before his first four-year term is completed. While such a coup would probably help the Trump-targeted island of Cuba, I think it would have disastrous effects on America, Democracy, and the World. Therefore, without reservations and bowing to the enormity and ubiquity of the mainstream media as a propaganda force, I think at the moment Jeff Zucker, not Donald Trump, is the biggest threat to America, Democracy and the World.

       Even ultra-liberal and left-wing Harvard University, as with the graphic above, admits that the ultra-biased coverage by the mainstream United States media of the Trump presidency is grossly out-of-whack. The Harvard survey above indicates only the right-wing Fox Network has balanced coverage of Trump. In any such survey, even from extreme liberals, CNN would be the most biased or just tied with NBC.

      With NBC anchors like Rachel Maddow, that network is even more laughable than CNN, which indeed in its international coverage still has actual journalists. Maddow has the prime night-time hour on MSNBC and for well over a year she doesn't even pretend to cover the news. All she does, clearly with management's approval, is rant anti-Trump propaganda. and Maddow is clearly the smartest and most talented of all the NBC-MSNBC anchors, making anchors like the Mika-Joe "Morning Joe" duo resemble anti-Trump clowns as opposed to being broadcast journalists. Maddow, for all her talent, had miserable ratings until recently reaching up to 4 million regular viewers who are obviously all aboard the anti-Trump caravan or clown-show.

     As the highest profile anti-Trump anchor on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow also feels free to mock journalism, America and Democracy by using social media, as shown above, to even call for what appears to be the assassination of President Trump.

      The brilliant 2017 Editorial Cartoon in the Augusta Chronicle shown above flashed around the world because it accurately portrayed the extreme depths to which broadcast journalism in the United States has sunk. Note that Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's prime-time "news" program is blaring out and shamefully propagandizing about President Trump. Instead of covering news, even news involving the Most Powerful Man in the World, Maddow is depicted disrespecting America, journalism and her audience by raving about alleged Trump peccadilloes from long ago, including "Trump's overdue library books" and a classic Maddow "exclusive" about "Trump leaves his toilet seat up." THIS WOULD ALL BE LAUGHABLE EXCEPT FOR ONE THING: It reflects the depths to which broadcast journalism in America has sunk and in the modern age broadcast journalism can be an awesome propaganda tool. That combination is dangerous.

      Here's an actual photo, not an Editorial Cartoon. It shows Cuba's top Broadcast Journalist anchoring a news program on the island. Her name: Cristina Escobar. She is perhaps the most talented broadcast journalist in the Americas, which includes America and North America. She is bilingual, highly intelligent, and well educated. She is also an expert on U.S.-Cuban relations; her college thesis eerily predicted how U. S. president Obama would impact Cuba. AND she has famously and emphatically stated: "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." I understand that Americans are programmed to dismiss that assertion just because it came from a Cuban on the island. But she firmly believes it and she has had the courage to state it in the U. S. capital of Washington, at two university speaking engagements in Alabama, and at a journalism seminar in California. In other words, she means it...in Cuba or the U. S.

      As an anchor or as a panelist, Cristina Escobar's sheer independence puts her a notch or two above America's one-trick-ponies such as...Rachel, Mika, Poppy, etc.

     And as shown above, Cristina Escobar has made history on U. S. soil. She is the only Cuban journalist that has ever been allowed to ask questions at a White House News Conference. And in flawless English, she asked six excellent questions.

      The photo above was taken from a video interview of Cristina Escobar in Havana conducted by respected U. S. journalist Tracey Eaton. The video is available for viewing on YouTube and the Pulitzer website. Her most quoted comment in this video is: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island." The significance of that quote is two-fold: {1} She is a highly respected leader of the young-adult generation in Cuba that is determined to predicate the island's future; and {2} she has no intention of leaving the island...even for lucrative broadcast offers from both Miami and New York City.

And so:

USA's face of journalism.

Cuba's face of journalism.

They epitomize the U.S.-Cuban Tango.

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The Cuba-U.S. Divide

It SHOULD Get Much Wider!!
{Sunday, September 24th, 2017}

      This week - Friday, Sept. 22, 2017 -- Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez addressed the United Nations General Assembly session in New York. Mr. Rodriguez used the occasion to solicit donations to help Cubans whose homes and most of their other possessions were destroyed by the ravages of Hurricane Irma.

     Very innocently and benevolently, Cuba's Bruno Rodriguez displayed this graphic at the United Nations this week to show how anyone wishing to help Hurricane Irma victims in Cuba could donate. He was not demanding anything but just pleading.

      But not everyone thought Cuba's request for donations to help devastated Cubans was either innocent or benevolent!!!

     Virtually within minutes of Cuba's fervent plea at the UN this week requesting donations for victims of Hurricane Irma, Mimi Whitefield had penned an article in the Miami Herald with this jarring two-sentence headline: "CUBA SETS UP HURRICANE RELIEF BANK ACCOUNT. U. S. CITIZENS SHOULD BE WARY OF CONTRIBUTING."

          Although that vicious reaction in the Miami Herald, which has been dominated by vicious counter-revolutionaries since 1959, is not surprising, I would like to ask Mimi Whitefield this question: "If there was an account set up requesting donations to expedite the embargo's attempt to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to entice them to rise up and overthrow their government, would you then have a two-sentence headline suggesting, by all means, that U. S. citizens contribute to that??? {As I was asking that question I wondered if Mimi Whitefield thinks it is appropriate?}.

     In my opinion...if indeed I'm allowed to have one as a democracy-loving U. S. citizen...the aforementioned Miami Herald headline proves that the already extreme Cuba-U.S. Divide should be wider...much wider. A sovereign island nation trying to go deep into a second half-century surviving against the nefarious plans of vicious counter-revolutionaries hiding behind the skirts of the world's superpower is, I believe, a sovereign island nation that would be better off severing all ties with that behemoth. A tired, tasty lamb trying to sleep with a hungry, vicious lion is, I sincerely believe, a no-win situation.

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Cuba Is Back to Business

Despite Hurricanes, Embargo, etc.!!

Photo courtesy of Sven Greulzmann/Mambo Photos/Getty Images.

       The outstanding photo above was used to illustrate a major article this week in the Americas Quarterly written by Collin Lavery, one of America's greatest experts on U.S.-Cuban relations. The article is entitled: "After Irma, Cubans Are Ready to Get Back to Business." The two young Cuban girls above are getting back to enjoying life after the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Irma and after they, as well as their parents, have been punished all their lives by the U. S. embargo of their island.

      When a true Cuban expert like Collin Lavery writes an honest, updated and insightful article about what's happening in Cuba, Americans should read it because, for the most part, the Cuban narrative in the U. S. is saturated by a pack of lies and distortions purposely crafted only by counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans.

     
     In his aforementioned article Collin Lavery wrote: "Hurricane Irma was expected to largely skirt Cuba, sweeping over the eastern tip of the island before barreling toward Florida. Instead, the monstrous storm practically ran the length of the nation, leaving a path of destruction along the northern coast. This was the first time the eye of a category five storm reached the island since 1932, and the traumatic consequences were dire. The Malecon, Havana's famed seawall, was no match for the 20-foot swells that hurled against it. Irma did not, however, take the resilience, resolve and spirit of the Cuban people. It did not leave Cuba uninhabitable and it didn't destroy the beauty the country has to offer. But you wouldn't know that from the news. Media coverage focused on..." It was then that Collin Lavery correctly criticized the mainstream American media that has, even when a devastating hurricane constitutes the big Cuban news, neither the competence nor the guts to tell the truth about Cuba but the United States media is a lapdog conduit for counter-revolutionary lies and distortions.

    The London Daily News is an online superstar. It's major article this week is entitled: "Damning Evidence Cuba Launched A Si-Fi Sonic Weapon At America."

      The Daily News used the above graphic to illustrate its "damning" article accusing Cuba of purposely using some sort of "sonic weapon" to harm about two dozen Americans attached to the Obama-reopened U. S. embassy in Havana.

     The "Sonic Wave" mystery is being used by counter-revolutionary Cubans and some proselytized Americans to insist that, among other things, President Trump's U. S. government close its embassy in Havana and Cuba's embassy in Washington that the brave U. S. President Obama had reopened for the first time since 1961.

         But since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959, Revolutionary Cuba and its capital city have been targeted by counter-revolutionary bombings, terrorist acts, military attacks, and self-serving lies that include lavishly calculated and well-funded actions designed as pretexts to justify continuous attempts at overthrowing Cuba's revolutionary government. In 1996 when President Clinton was considering normalizing relations with Cuba, Brothers to the Rescue planes from Miami, led by a notable counter-revolutionary, began overflying Cuban territory, even Havana, and even after Cuba begged both the U. S. State Department and the United Nations to stop the overflights. Cuba ended up shooting down two of the planes, not only changing President Clinton's mind but forcing him to sign the ultra-punitive Helms-Burton Act into law and, as a financial offshoot, hundreds of millions of dollars were awarded to relatives of the four shoot-down victims. Now many observers believe the current "Sonic Mystery" may be a similar perpetration...either by counter-revolutionaries in the U. S. OR by hardliners in Cuba who oppose the Obama-orchestrated peaceful overtures between the two nations. Meanwhile, the U. S. embassy as well as U. S. homes in Havana have been swept for evidence as have rooms in the Spanish-run Capri Hotel where Americans stay.

     Even insiders like Michael Parmly, considered by Cuba to be a staunch Bush-connected U. S. counter-revolutionary, believe that counter-revolutionaries may be behind the sonic assaults on Americans in Havana attached to the U. S. embassy. And even some Trump appointees believe that Cuban President Raul Castro is as flummoxed and alarmed about the situation as anyone. He has requested that the FBI and CIA send top agents to Havana to investigate. He also has welcomed the Canadian Royal Mounties to investigate in Havana because at least one person at the Canadian embassy has been victimized by the sonic or electronic vibes. Cuba surely would not purposely harm its close relationship with Canada, especially now that Cuba-loving Justin Trudeau, the son of former Cuba-loving Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, is now Canada's Prime Minister and is a needed North American friend.

     During the fiercely anti-Cuban George W. Bush presidency, Michael Parmly was the head of the U. S. Interests Section in Havana from 2005 till 2008, and he was noted for mocking and harassing the Cuban government. So he knows something about nuances in U.S.-Cuban relations. He believes counter-revolutionaries in Miami or hardliners in Cuba might be using the sonic attacks to undermine President Raul Castro's peaceful agreements with the Obama administration in the United States. Parmly said, "There is a struggle going on for the soul of the Cuban Revolution. It's entirely possible there are rogue elements." The Washington Post -- in a major article entitled "Cuba Mystery. Even Castro Baffled by Harm to U. S. Diplomats" seemed to agree with Parmly that rouge elements in both the United States and Cuba strongly oppose rapprochement between the two neighbors. Parmly now lives in Switzerland and apparently is no longer an anti-Cuban hardliner; in 2013 he began arguing that the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay should be returned to Cuba.

      While America's President Trump was lambasting Cuba in his first UN address this week, Cuba's top expert on the U. S., Josefina Vidal, was back in Washington. She was representing Cuba at the 6th U.S.-Cuba Commission, which has alternated between Havana and Washington since it was started by the Obama administration. This marked the first time it was held during the Trump presidency and it took place on the heels of his UN address Tuesday. The Miami Herald, in a major article written by Mimi Whitefield, said that Vidal "wasn't very cordial in her reactions to Trump's UN accusations." At the U. S. Commission session in Washington Vidal said: "Cuba strongly protests and resents the disrespectful, unacceptable and meddling statements made by President Donald Trump in his address to the UN General Assembly. This Commission designed for harmony meets in the backdrop of a reversal of U.S.-Cuba relations from that of the previous 2-term Obama presidency."

       During the Obama presidency, Josefina Vidal negotiated on friendly terms with two Americans she deeply respects -- Jeffrey de Laurentis and Roberta Jacobson, who were Obama's two prime diplomats related to Cuba. Roberta is now the U. S. Ambassador to Mexico and Obama appointed Jeffrey the U. S. Ambassador to Cuba. But counter-revolutionary U. S. Senator Marco Rubio from Miami held up Roberta's badly needed posting in Mexico City for months and Rubio to this day has blocked the U. S. from having an Ambassador at the new U. S. embassy in Havana. Allowing Rubio or a handful of self-serving zealots like him to dictate America's Cuban policy mocks both America and democracy, but that's the way it's been since 1959 except for Obama's two terms as President. Thus, decent Cubans like Josefina Vidal and decent Americans like Jeffrey de Laurentis and Roberta Jacobson are routinely victimized by unchecked miscreants such as Marco Rubio.

      The above photo shows Josefina Vidal on Dec. 7-2016 when she hosted the 5th U.S.-Cuba Commission in Havana. This week Mimi Whitefield in the Miami Herald summed up the 6th Commission session in Washington with this paragraph: "By contrast, the previous meeting last Dec. 7th in Havana was a comparative love fest with the sides noting achievements in U.S.-Cuban relations, including signing 11 non-binding agreements on health, the environment, counter-narcotics, and other areas of agreement." But there was no "love fest" this week.

      The Mimi Whitefield article in the Miami Herald also reported that Josefina Vidal spoke out strongly regarding the ongoing mystery about the sonic attacks on Americans in Havana after the issue was brought up by United States representative John Creamer in Washington this week. Vidal sternly said, "Cuba has never perpetrated nor will it every perpetrate action of this nature, and Cuba has never permitted nor will it ever permit any third-party use of its territory for that purpose. Cuba has a keen interest in clarifying what happened to the diplomats." As the long-time top Cuban Minister regarding U. S. affairs, Vidal believed "perhaps my prime task is being on the alert for elements in Miami and Washington trying to goad Cuba into a reaction they could use to justify a regime change in our sovereign country, meaning a U. S. puppet as in America's Caribbean and Latin American past."

      Vidal is also outspoken on Twitter Q & As. There are indications that she is becoming more convinced that negotiating with the U. S. is useless when "any Republican White House and a couple of Miami Cubans can reverse anything achieved by respectable people operating in the best interests of most Cubans, Americans, and Cuban-Americans." It is also apparent in Cuba that the all-important young-adult generation agrees with Vidal during a transitional period on the island after the Nov. 25-2016 death of 90-year-old Fidel Castro and the impending Feb.-2018 retirement of 86-year-old Raul Castro. At one point in time Fidel told Vidal he would support her if she "wanted one day to be Cuba's leader." She recovered in time to let him know that she preferred being "a revolutionary diplomat for you and for Cuban sovereignty." 

      But being Cuba's top diplomat related to the United States, Vidal seems tormented by the realization that "reversals" by current U. S. President Donald Trump negates "many months, years" of the "positive accomplishments" she negotiated with the decent and courageous Obama presidency. Trump's UN speech this week, as chronicled above, re-convinced Vidal that Trump has neither the courage or the decency to oppose Cuban extremists in Miami and in the United States Congress.

      Obama was the first American President since 1962 to have both the courage and the decency to simply say: "Recognize that the Cold War is over. Lift the embargo."

            Barack Obama was the first American President since Herbert Hoover in 1928 to visit Cuba. And once there, on live television in both Cuba and the U. S., President Obama told the Cuban people, "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." He spoke those words sincerely in March of 2016, not knowing that by September of 2017 a President named Trump would revert America's Cuban policies back to a Miami U. S. Senator named Rubio, to the detriment of the American democracy and everyone other than a handful of counter-revolutionary extremists.

      And that brings us back around to the photo above that Cuban expert Collin Lavery used to illustrate his insightful article this week entitled "After Irma, Cuba Is Ready to Get Back to Business." Collin Lavery knows the two happy Cuban girls survived Hurricane Irma and he seems to believe they will survive Trump and Rubio. Decent people like Collin Lavery and Josefina Vidal are convinced that rich people in a powerful country should not prey on poorer people in a weaker country.

And by the way:

     This week The Voice of America used the above photo-graphic to highlight this pertinent question: "Is the U. S. really ready, willing and able to 'totally destroy' North Korea, as President Trump asserted during his speech at the UN General Assembly? An analyst tells VOA the U. S. 'better be ready to go all in and be ready to finish it.'"

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Trump Targets Cuba Anew

Aligned with Batistianos at UN!
{Updated: Thursday, September 21st, 2017}

       America's President Donald Trump made his first speech at the United Nations Tuesday. It was a confrontational "America first" tirade that lasted 41 minutes.

       Not unexpectedly, Trump drew some gasps at the UN when he said he may be forced to "totally destroy" North Korea. He also threatened Iran and Syria but conspicuously omitted criticism of superpowers China and Russia. He earlier had mentioned he was considering "military action" in Venezuela but at the UN, while expounding on that threat, he didn't use such explicit words. Surprisingly, he mentioned Cuba five times, each time in extremely derogatory and threatening tones. The Miami Herald, fronting an article written by Franco Ordonez, quickly blared this headline: "Trump Threatens Venezuela and Puts Cuba on Notice." In his bombastic tone, he said, "Cuba is delivering only anguish and failure to its people. We will not lift sanctions against Cuba until the government in Havana makes fundamental changes." In the 41-minute UN speech, Trump used the words "sovereign" or "sovereignty" 21 times. What he meant in regards to Cuba is very, very clear: Cuba must fundamentally change by surrendening its sovereignty and returning its fate to the Batista-Mafia remnants in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. That, of course, is the crowd that the Cuban Revolution chased to American soil.

      This photo at the UN shows Trump huddling with his Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Any Cuban watcher should have concluded long ago that his appointment of Haley clearly signaled that Trump would turn over his Cuban policy to Haley's best political friend -- the counter-revolutionary U. S. Senator from Miami Marco Rubio.

      The most ambitious of Trump's appointments is Nikki Haley. She gave up her position as Governor of South Carolina only because she believes the higher national profile as UN Ambassador will expedite her path to the presidency. She caters to Trump now but she doesn't like him and she will undercut and double-cross Trump in a eyelash when the opportunity presents itself, and that may be sooner than later.

     During the heated Republican presidential campaign in 2016, as the Governor of South Carolina, Nikkie Haley campaign wildly for Marco Rubio. In that process both Haley and Rubio mocked and assailed Trump unmercifully. But now Trump is President and, as blatant turncoats, they will pretend to be working with Trump while scheming to destroy him. It is known that when Haley leaves her UN post in New York to travel to Washington, she mostly huddles with the ultimate schemer Rubio.

        Nikki Haley's love for Marco Rubio is eternal and well known in Washington's political circles. That's bad news for Cuba but worse news for Trump because there are two foxes in Trump's hen-house, ready to feast when the time is right and that figures to be well before Trump's first term ends in 2020. Trump is facing a daily and unending media coup being perpetrated relentlessly by omnipotent coup-mongers led by NBC-MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. That's rather formidable, but it's not as big a threat to Trump as Haley and Rubio.

    To demonstrate how much Nikki Haley hates Trump and loves Cuban-American counter-revolutionaries, especially Marco Rubio, the instant her beloved Marco Rubio was unceremoniously booted out of the Republican presidential primary by Trump, Haley then campaigned furiously for Senator Ted Cruz against Trump till Trump also eliminated presidential wannabe Cruz. Then, stupidly and probably fatally, President Trump talked with Haley about her becoming Secretary of State. She declined, believing she wasn't prepared for that. But she accepted the position as UN Ambassador as her path to the presidency. Political insiders now believe she feels fortified enough to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, the most powerful cabinet position in the Trump presidency, although to date Haley has made the UN job the most gratuitous for her with a profile on foreign affairs already higher than Tillerson's. But Cruz is only Haley's second favorite counter-revolutionary Cuban. Rubio is and will forever be her first choice. She envisions both herself and Rubio as future Presidents with either of them still young enough for a Vice Presidential stint.

       At the UN Tuesday Nikki Haley was the obedient fox in President Trump's hen-house. In the above photo the dour expression on First Lady Melania's face might have been because of the nearness of Haley, whom Melania does not like and doesn't trust. The First Lady speaks five languages including German, French and Italian. And her instincts regarding Haley and Rubio are also superior to Trump's as he dangerously assumes his White House hens are safe and the two foxes are his pals.

       At the United Nations next month the Batistiano-loving Nikki Haley will cast a vehement "No!" vote for the United States against ending the U. S. embargo against Cuba. That decision has been made and it will be announced prior to October.

      By contrast, the decent President Obama's Ambassador to the United Nations was the brilliant and kind-hearted Samatha Power, a true and experienced U. S. diplomat.

      On October 26, 2016, in a heart-wrenching speech at the UN, Ambassador Samantha Power explained why the Obama administration could not support the U. S. government's own Congress-directed embargo against the "suffering" Cuban people.

     Last year the more decent Obama administration wasn't nasty enough to vote in the UN to support the embargo against Cuba that has been in effect since 1962 and is considered the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. Thus, last October the UN vote condemning the embargo was, as shown above, 191-to-0. The U. S. abstained and thus so did Israel, which is dependent on massive economic and military support from the United States. Again next month 193 nations will vote on the embargo. This time Haley's vote and Israel's vote will guarantee there will not be a 191-to-0 unanimity this year. Based on the Batistiano-mandated Helms-Burton Act, only Congress can eliminate the embargo and a mere handful of Batistianos control the 535-member Congress as far as Cuba is concerned. If and when they control the White House, the goal of capturing America before they re-capture Cuba will finally be chaotically complete, and the current generation of Americans is neither brave enough nor patriotic enough to prevent it.

      Cuba calls the U. S. embargo a genocidal blockade. For over half-a-century it has severely hurt two generations of totally innocent Cubans, such as the ones above. 

    The anti-Cuba/anti-Venezuela boondoggles at the UN this week reveal how the Trump presidency is sandwiched between's Miami's extremist contributions to the U. S. Congress -- Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart. The Miami counter-revolutionaries, of course, don't  have to explain to intimidated democracy-lovers that over two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida, a decisive majority, favor normal relations with Cuba but it seems only radical, self-serving extremists are eligible to be elected to Congress. Rubio, with stalwarts like Nikki Haley in his hip-pocket, is positioned to dictate Trump's upcoming assaults on Cuba as well as his threatened "military action" against Venezuela, and that would be a Miami-parlay reminiscent of the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 and the short-lived 2002 coup in Venezuela, with both events Miami-related. The first lofty praise of Trump's Miami-directed UN threat against Cuba came from Mario Diaz-Balart who was quickly quoted in the aforementioned Miami Herald as lauding Trump for "dealing a clear message of freedom against the tyranny of despotic regimes." Of course, speaking of despotic regimes, Mario's father was a key Minister in the Batista-Mafia regime in Cuba before he helped make Little Havana in Miami the regime's new capital back in 1959.

     Mario Diaz-Balart's older brother, Havana-born Lincoln, preceded him in the U. S. Congress form Miami and another brother, Jose, is an anchor at NBC-MSNBC where every anchor and pundit are required to be anti-Trump extremists, not broadcast journalists. But impeaching Trump to pave the way for Rubio and the Diaz-Balarts would simply be replacing an anti-Cuban President with a counter-revolutionary Commander-in-Chief who likely would almost immediately try to make up for the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack, which Revolutionary Cuba famously repelled.

    Cuba's UN Ambassador, Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo, said, "Neither Trump nor his ambassador here have any right to lecture any Latin American nation about despots when the United States' history, so well known to every Latin American nation, is one of supporting wicked dictatorships from Batista to Trujillo to Pinochet, and that includes multiple coups that overthrew democratically elected governments to put their despots in place. So what's just another American coup against a Latin American nation?"

      At the UN, Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo admits her heart is back in Cuba and "more concerned with hurricane recovery than I am with Trump and his Miami Cubans."

     The President of the Havana Defense Council, Mercedes Lopez Acea, updated the ongoing recovery from the devastation left by Hurricane Irma: "Transmission networks have been restored in Havana. Also, work on repairing the electrical network in the capital is almost completed. We sent 200 lineman from Havana to Villa Clara province to restore electrical services. But the damage is so immense to private homes. In 2008 three consecutive hurricanes -- Ike, Gustau and Paloma -- damaged or destroyed over 200,000 homes. Irma was so big it was like that in its ferocity."

      Understandably, Cubans right now are more concerned with coping with the Hurricane Irma damage than with the upcoming damage they expect from President Trump and what Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo called Trump's "Miami Cubans."

      The quotation by Anazansi Rodriguez Camejo at the United Nations this week rekindles memories of the historic quotation by Cuba's greatest revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."

And by the way:

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