Cuba Rides Caribbean Waves

At Christmastime 2018!!
{Updated: Tuesday, December 25th, 2018}

      At Christmastime in the Americas in 2018, most citizens are celebrating the end of a fading year and gaily anticipating the New Year of 2019. But the most targeted nation in the Western Hemisphere, very vulnerable Cuba, is primarily dealing with other age-old realities concerning the environment and geography -- namely the island's sometime wicked attacks from the often fierce Caribbean weather and the island's close proximity, unfortunately, to the Counter Revolutionary zealots headquartered in Miami's Little Havana sector. The photo above shows workers at Cuba's main government building, MINREX, dealing this past Holiday weekend with Havana's latest flood that yet again highlighted the capital city's dangerous ocean-front shoreline. A key MINREX official, Johana Tablada, wrote: "Asi esta entorno de nuestro Ministeria a las 12 horas. La Habana y el mar, relacion de amor y peligro." {"This is the environment for our Ministry at 12 o'clock. Havana and the sea, relationship of love and danger."}. Yes, love & danger.

       The people this weekend cleaning up the most important office complex in Havana include top MINREX government officials such as Johana Tablada, Ana Teresita, and Marcelino Medina.

     This weekend's flood plaguing Havana only troubled the lowest-lying areas near the famed Malecon Seawall, but Cubans such as the frustrated young man shown walking away after he viewed the partially flooded street is newly confronted with more assaults than just those from the often-fickle, sometimes deadly Caribbean weather. The primary attacks for everyday Cubans are coming from Little Havana, the U. S. Congress, and the White House in Washington...a foreign land much stronger and many times richer than Cuba.

    The last major hurricane that tormented Havana and the entire island was a reminder that the nearby Superpower United States once again came to the financial and recovery aid of other Hurricane-devastated Caribbean nations, all except Cuba. Instead of helping 11.4 million totally innocent everyday Cubans during such disasters, the United States takes advantage of such Cuban problems by even blocking or scaring off other nations from providing needed material and other assistance to the swamped Cuban people.

       Since January of 1959 the Cuban policies of the United States have been largely dictated by what Cubans on the island consider the criminals {and now their rich-and-powerful offspring} from the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship, which quickly resettled in their new headquarters on U. S. soil, namely nearby Miami but also such Mafia-influenced USA cities as Newark. For the world's greatest Democracy to allow that to persist for six decades, while also failing to even recapture Cuba, does two things: {1} It shames the United States far more than it shames Cuba; and {2} it has been allowed to shame both the U. S. and Democracy more than any other topic in the eyes of the entire world. For example, in 2016 -- the final year in which the decent Barack Obama was President of the United States, the entire world voted 191-to-0 at the UN to condemn the USA for its gutless and cruel Cuban policies, and the loud unanimity of that vote was endorsed by the then decent U. S. President Obama. Yet, to appease a handful of yet another generation of Batista-Mafia benefactors, the USA Cuban policies...as universally depicted by the Carlos LaTuff image above, persists. That fact shines the primary spotlight not on the criminal benefactors but on the generations of cowardly and unpatriotic U. S. citizens who have so meekly allowed the LaTuff image to shame America and Democracy every day since January 1, 1959. The quintessential image of America's Cuban policy since the 1950s IS the Latuff image; it embarrasses me as a democracy-loving American and I will forever not understand why it doesn't embarrass more Americans other than the most decent ones, like Obama.

     During his two terms as President of the United States {2009-2017} Barack Obama did all he could to bring decency and sanity to America's Cuban policies...including the normalization of everything he could possibly normalize. He even became the first U. S. President since Herbert Hoover {who visited the island on a warship} to visit Cuba since 1928. While in Cuba, the decent President Obama, speaking directly {see above} to the Cuban people on nationwide television, made this sincerely brave, and  eminently decent statement: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." Of course, when he made that sincere, decent, and sane promise to the Cuban people, President Obama didn't anticipate that his successor as President would be a Republican named Donald Trump.

   From 1952, when the USA sicced the Mafia on Cuba so rich Americans could partake in the fleecing of Cuba, through the year 2018 all six Republican administrations in Washington have been tightly aligned with the Batista-Mafia rape-and-robbery of Cuba, which includes since 1959 the vicious military-terrorist-assassination-embargo attempts to re-capture the vulnerable but pugnacious island. Thus, shortly after being inaugurated on Jan. 20-2017 as America's all-time most unlikely President, Donald Trump made a beeline to Little Havana in Miami to inform the most vicious Cuban-American Counter Revolutionaries that he would not only reverse all of Obama's decency towards Cuba but he would also avenge their, and America's, humiliating military defeat at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. Today, as we prepare to enter the new year of 2019, Little Havana in Miami is awash in tributes to Assault Brigade 2506, the losers along with the United States at the Bay of Pigs. When Trump made those promises in Little Havana he was highlighting the Brigade 2506 banner and, of course, he was doing so in a lavish Little Havana building named for one of the Brigade 2506 attack leaders.

     Since his despicable lack of respect for the United States democracy was on display in front of the Brigada Asalto 2506 banner in Little Havana, President Trump has spent two years turning America's Cuban policy back over to the most self-serving Counter Revolutionary zealots on U. S. soil -- such as Marco Rubio, John Bolton, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and Little Havana's Diaz-Balart clan whose father Rafael Diaz-Balart was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista-Mafia dictatorship and, after 1959, one of the all-time richest and most powerful Counter Revolutionary extremists on American soil.

     As America approaches the New Year of 2019, since 1959 the Diaz-Balart family and other extreme zealots with extreme ties dating back to Cuba's Batista dictatorship have been allowed to dictate the Cuban policies and the Cuban narratives in the United States to suit their whims, greed, and revenge.

    This week the much-maligned but very sophisticated Cuban state media has used the above image to respond to such things as a Batistiano-dictated control of the Cuban narrative in the USA. The above photo and words were spewed to the world on Twitter by Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Little Havana/Counter Revolutionary fame. For the past three decades Ros-Lehtinen has been extremely effective as a vicious anti-Cuban member of the U. S. Congress, a position gifted to her in 1989 by the self-serving Bush dynasty when Jeb Bush was Ros-Lehtinen's Campaign Manager. Using the photo above, Ros-Lehtinen was trying to depict a revolt or anti-government demonstration by Cubans. The U. S. media, of course, accepted the apparent ruse as a typical component of the U. S. Cuban narrative, but the Cuban media also pointed out that the photo was not taken in Cuba...but in Egypt against the Egyptian government, and there was no such anti-Cuban demonstration. Cairo is not Havana, except maybe when a juxtaposition can benefit the USA Cuban narrative.

      Regardless of what cruelty is directed at Cubans on their island, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and all the Little Havana politicians have gotten a totally free ride from the U. S. media. After three decades of a Bush dynasty-sponsored tenure in the U. S. Congress from Miami, Ros-Lehtinen is retiring. She expected her hand-picked successor, one of America's most famous Hispanic journalists, would be elected to succeed her.

     The Nov.-2018 election to replace Ros-Lehtinen in the U. S. Congress pitted 77-year-old Donna Shalala against Maria Elvira Salazar, Ros-Lehtinen's and Donald Trump's pick.

     The new U. S. Congresswoman from Ros-Lehtinen's Florida district, Donna Shalala, indicates that Little Havana's grip on politics in Florida and in the U. S. Congress is showing some cracks. If so, it's about time...considering that most of the 2+ million Cuban-Americans favor decent treatment of Cubans on the island and therefore their voices need to be stronger.

    From the first day almost two years ago when Donald Trump was sworn in as America's 45th President, the ultra-powerful and ultra-rich left-wing media in the United States has refused to accept his election and thus, for the past two years, has engaged in an all-out media coup to impeach him without doing the democratic thing, which is waiting for the next presidential election to democratically perform that deed. The anti-democratic/extreme left-wing culprits seeking to impeach/imprison Trump include...the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, and ABC. All those omnipotent and so-called news outlets are far less interested in covering the news than in overturning the Trump presidency. And yet...not any of those left-wing/anti-Trump media sources has the guts to even mention Trump's most diabolical digression, which is his Batistiano/Mafiosi-driven Cuban policies. And this is so even though all of those aforementioned left-wing media culprits assign their propagandists-pundits {masquerading as real journalists} to dig up and exploit anything possible to demean Trump -- anything possible, that is, except Trump's most demeaning action, which is turning America's Cuban policies back over to the Counter Revolutionary extremists.

     And so, ironically, the besieged President Trump is actually correct when he accuses the left-wing/Fake News culprits of shaming America's democratic principles by using a media coup to try to overthrow his presidency. And moreover...frankly, my dear...the left-wing media extremists did not do democracy-lovers like me any favors by putting Trump in the White House following Obama...and moreover might further exacerbate the situation by getting Trump re-elected for a second term beginning in 2020.

      In other words, while the ultra-powerful left-wing extremists who dominate the pundit/propagandist-driven U. S. media are trying so hard to dethrone President Trump and even put him in JAIL, the white backlash to such anti-democratic stupidity put Trump in the White House for his first term and might give him a second term.

      Meanwhile, on the island of Cuba at Christmastime in 2018, this young Cuban man had to check on the latest flood to hit Havana. But the main threat to him and the other 11.4 million Cubans on the island, most Cubans believe, is what they consider another criminal administration, Trump's, in Washington.

     And meanwhile, this young Cuban woman, and most of the other 11.4 million Cubans on the island, are busy studying what is the first new Cuban Constitution since the 1970s. Then on February 24th, 2019, she and the other everyday Cubans will actually get to vote on the island's new Constitution. Of course, it is not perfect...BUT it is not nearly as imperfect as self-serving miscreants hiding behind the skirts of a nearby Superpower being allowed to punish this woman because she has chosen not to defect to Miami and not to try to overthrow her revolutionary government, which she hopes the new constitution will improve while the one thing she has no control over or input on is the Trump-Batistiano administration in Washington.

 And Through it all, Cuba's sovereign revolutionary flag still waves in those often troubling Caribbean breezes. And while imperfect, it is better than another Batistiano-Mafiosi flag representing the Caribbean's largest, most beautiful, and most coveted island nation. In other words, Cubans on the island should determine Cuba's future, not miscreants hiding decade after decade behind the skirts of a foreign Superpower.

AND BY THE WAY:

     Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel frequently uses Twitter and the Cuban Radio & Television media to connect with the people. His Dec. 23rd-2018 Tweet shown above says: "Much congratulations to Mailen Diaz Almaguer on your birthday. All Cubans celebrate with you. With love and appreciation we wish you a happy day. We are Cuba. We are continuity."

      The 19-year-old Mailen Diaz Almaguer is the only survivor from the May 18-2018 plane crash on the edge of Havana that killed the other 112 people on board.

This is Mailen right after the crash.

     With massive injuries from the top of her head to her toes, Mailen was provided loving minute-by-minute care at Calixto Garcia Hospital, the island's top trauma facility. Once she was out of danger, Mailen was moved to the renowned Amejeiras Brothers rehabilitation unit where on December 23rd she celebrated her 20th birthday along with the island's President.

      This is Mailen's sister Maylen showing a beloved Smart Phone photo of Mailen just before the crash. There were still sad tears in Maylen's eyes, but some happy, grateful tears too.

     This photo shows Mailen, on the left, looking strong on her 20th birthday on Dec. 23rd-2018. The selfi was taken by her sister Maylen and posted on Facebook and in the Cuban media.

    The horrendous airplane crash occurred exactly one month after Miguel Diaz-Canel had become President of Cuba on April 19th, 2018. Within minutes of the tragedy, President Diaz-Canel was at the site as shown above. Cuba's Triumphs & Tragedies are now Diaz-Canel's.

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STILL A Batista Dictatorship

But in Miami, not in Havana!!
{Updated: Saturday,  December 22nd, 2018}

   Even though the USA's Trump administration is taking its Cuban instructions strictly from visceral Counter Revolutionary benefactors such as Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Mauricio Claver-Carone, the graphic above illustrates that a decent and sane agreement concerning Cuba was reached on USA soil this week. The FCB -- the Federation of Cuban Baseball -- and Major League Baseball in the United States agreed to treat Cuban baseball players like potential MLB players from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc. As with players from other countries, the FCB will get a reasonable release fee when its players are made eligible to sign with any of the 30 MLB teams. Cuban players are no longer the ONLY PLAYERS IN THE WORLD who have to defect from their nation, often dangerously using human traffickers, in order to play baseball in the U. S., one of countless insanely cruel rules dictated in the U. S. by remnants of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba that was overthrown in 1959. And so, everybody except Batistianos in the USA and human trafficker-types benefit from this long-desired FCB-MLB agreement, and that includes the 11 million passionate baseball fans on the island of Cuba. But that last factor creates a problem. The handful of Cuban-Americans who insist on dictating the USA Cuban policies vehemently oppose anything that helps or pleases Cubans on the island, and thus those miscreants believe they can persuade President Trump to block the sane and decent FCB-MLB agreement.

    Despite the holiday season and all else that is happening, the FCB-MLB agreement, because it is sane and decent, garnered massive headlines in both Cuba and the USA. In huge USA Today articles for two days running, Mario Diaz-Balart, a product of Little Havana and the son of a former Top Minister in the long-ago Batista-Mafia dictatorship, was lavishly quoted as indicating he will make sure President Trump vetoes the baseball sanity. With gutless swiftness, Mario said, "Thankfully, Trump stands with the Cuban people in opposing a tyranny and would not endorse such a blatant exploitation that benefits a malevolent, anti-American dictatorship." Mario, of course, meant that Trump stands with the handful of powerful Counter Revolutionaries in Little Havana, and he called the agreement "shameful" and expressed his belief that Trump, like all Republican presidents, would not have the guts or decency to deny direct messages sent by the Little Havana Cubans. During the preceding decency of the Obama administration, Mario, of course, never bragged that he sends "messages to the White House all the time." He just meant messages that were always heeded by Republican presidents, and he expects Trump to heed his "messages" regarding the baseball agreement. This has been going on for decades from the likes of the Diaz-Balart clan that dates back to the vile Batistic-Mafia dictatorship that was chased to Little Havana in January, 1959. So Mario Diaz-Balart's "message" to Trump regarding the baseball sanity is typical of the anti-democratic bile that the likes of Mario have shamed American with for decades. The second paragraph of the USA Today article written by Jorge Ortiz and Alan Gomez states: "The deal facilitates Cuban players' entry into American professional baseball while avoiding the journeys and dealings with human smugglers that have marked many of their departures." In other words, what Mario and his ilk have dictated since 1959 harms the totally innocent and benefits the non-innocent. Yet, to this day the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid to question the motives of people like Mario...or question why someone like Mario can remain an incumbent in the U. S. Congress year-after-year even when most of the two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida favor decent treatment of Cubans on the island.

    The magic of television has elevated football, basketball and other sports to such levels that baseball may no long be America's National Pastime. But in Cuba, baseball is and will remain the uncontested National Pastime, bordering  on religious fervor. As this Cuban Pipeline graphic indicates, Cuba per capita produces far more baseball talent than the United States does. Baseball was introduced to Cuba in 1866 and has been played professionally on the island since 1878. The sport is ingrained deeply into the fabric of the island's culture. But ingrained deeply into the fabric of the U. S. democracy is the Batistiano plague manifested since 1959 by the likes of the Diaz-Balart clan, as I will discuss later during this update. Therefore, the three Cuban U. S. stars in the "Pipeline" graphic, like all the other many Major League stars of today, had to defect in order to play in the USA. That was a godsend for human traffickers and other criminals.

    For example, Yasiel Puig of the Los Angeles Dodgers, on his way to the Major Leagues, was kidnapped, tortured, threatened with murder of himself and his family, and robbed of millions by human traffickers. Yasiel returned for a visit to his beloved Cuba right after playing for the Dodgers in the World Series this year. He and other Cubans in the U. S. Major Leagues prayed for the sanity and decency that finally emerged in the Cuba-USA baseball agreement this week. And that, of course, is the sanity and decency that, as always, the likes of Little Havana's U. S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart opposes. 

     And so, instead of sending his "messages" to President Trump about squelching the baseball agreement, perhaps it would be best for Mario Diaz-Balart to stick those "messages" where the sun don't shine.

     Unfortunately, either Mario or Lincoln Diaz-Balart or both of them at the same time have represented Florida's Little Havana area in the U. S. Congress for the past two decades. Like their father Rafael, a former key Minister in the Batista dictatorship, Mario and Lincoln have been one-trick-pony Counter Revolutionary zealots, effectively securing tons of tax dollars, easily acquired sycophants, and legal congressional laws to enrich and empower their anti-Cuban endeavors. Lincoln was born in 1954 in Havana during the Batista regime while Mario was born in 1961 in Fort Lauderdale when their father Rafael was one of the richest and most powerful all-time Counter Revolutionary Cubans on U. S. soil.

      On January 1, 1959, the Cuban Revolution defeated the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, which is also known to history as the Havana Mob. Teaming with the top echelon of the Mafia to support the Batista regime so rich Americans could partake in the fleecing of the island remains one massive black mark on U. S. history. But even more massive in the long-term has been the sheer fact that the Batista dictatorship, after being booted out of Cuba, has since January of 1959 feasted even more lucratively on U. S. soil.

     After the Cuban Revolution chased the Batista-Mafia dictatorship out of Havana, Little Havana in the heart of nearby Miami has essentially, since 1959, been the new capital for generations of rich and powerful Batistianos. Indeed, the money that was sent ahead to Miami banks and the money that arrived with the exodus of the fleeing Batistianos quickly and permanently overwhelmed both the economy and the politics of South Florida, providing their children advantages that others in South Florida did not have. That money also carved out political niches that extended from Miami to Washington and to other Batistiano-dominated cities like Newark, New Jersey.

     And through two generations, the U. S. democracy has permitted the most visceral elements with ties back to Cuba's Batista dictatorship to essentially dictate America's Cuban policies. That basic fact is illustrated by the photo above that shows five Miami politicos championing the Senate and Presidential ambitions of Little Havana's Marco Rubio. At the podium above is Lincoln Diaz-Balart and to his left is Mario Diaz-Balart. The Diaz-Balart brothers are the sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart, a key Minister in Cuba's 1950's Batista dictatorship. Since Little Havana in Miami became their new capital beginning in 1959, vicious Counter Revolutionaries like the Diaz-Balart brothers have not only dominated politics in Miami and Florida but also, thanks to self-serving sycophants like the Bush dynasty, that domination has extended seamlessly to the U. S. Congress and to all Republican controlled presidential administrations. For example, either one or both of the Diaz-Balart brothers have represented Little Havana in the U. S. Congress for the past two decades, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, shown on the right above, has been a Havana-born vicious Counter Revolutionary in the U. S. Congress for three decades, or since the self-serving Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager way back in 1989. Thus, since 1959 the virtually unchallenged pounding of Cubans on the island by rich and powerful Cuban Counter Revolutionaries from Little Havana has perhaps shamed America and Democracy more than any other issue in America's mostly cherished history.

      An America that for decades has allowed visceral Counter Revolutionary U. S. Cubans such as the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to fashion its cruel and failed Cuban policies is an America that is simply not as democratic or righteous as it was prior to 1959.

      
     Beginning in 1959, Rafael Diaz-Balart, fresh from the overthrown Batista dictatorship in Cuba, quickly became one of Miami's richest and most powerful all-time Counter Revolutionary Cubans on United States soil.

  The photo on the left shows Rafael Diaz-Balart when he was one of the most powerful Ministers in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Ironically, he had been not only a University of Havana Law School classmate of Fidel Castro but Rafael also was the sister of Mirta who married Fidel in 1948 and had his son.

     The photo above was taken in 1958 at a Batista political rally. In the center with the holstered pistol is Rafael Diaz-Balart. He is flanked my the infamous Masferrer brothers, Rodolfo and Rolando. If you Google the "Masferrer Tigers" or "Los Tigres de Masferrer" you will discover that the "Tigers" were the brutal army that viciously enforced rule on the island for the Batista dictatorship.

    The photo above shows Rafael Diaz-Balart flanked by his four sons, all of whom are rich and powerful -- a banker on the far left and Jose Diaz-Balart, second from the right who is now a news anchor at NBC News. Second from the left is Lincoln and on the far right is Mario, the two members of the U. S. Congress from Miami.

     Having mentioned the Masferrer Tigers, it is only fair to mention Tete Puebla. That's Tete sitting on the far left a bit unhappy on the back of a truck that entered Havana after the leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship had fled to safer havens off the island. Tete, you see, had become a legendary guerrilla fighter against U.S.-backed Batista soldiers by the time she was 15-years-old. Tete's fierce motivation was provided when, as she said in her biography, the Masferrer Tigers surrounded her village and burned a relative alive as a warning not to resist. Tete and other young girls like her did not heed such warnings; they became teenage guerrilla fighters against Batista, and the most famed is Tete. So...you ask...why was Tete unhappy the day she rode into Havana after the triumph of the Revolution? She explained why this way: "I...all of us...hoped the Batistianos would be waiting for us in Havana to fight us. We were sad they did not. They ran."

    Today Tete Puebla is a General in the Cuban Army. She is 78-years-old, having been born on December 9th, 1940, in Yara, Cuba. As a teenager, she became a legendary guerrilla fighter. At age 21 in April of 1961 when Cuba was attacked at the Bay of Pigs, Tete Puebla was instrumental in scoring a massive defensive victory for Revolutionary Cuba over the Counter Revolutionary Cubans that had been massively and expensively backed and supported by the U. S. military on land, in the air, and at sea. And so...now that you know Tete Puebla, the incredibly brave Cuban patriot, permit me to ask a question: Is Tete the bad guy and the Diaz-Balart clan the good guys? And before you answer that question, show some respect for the U. S. democracy and do some Googling on your own, and then answer the question.

     The book "MARIANAS IN COMBAT: Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War 1956-58" is the best Tete Puebla biography. Mariana Grajales was the Cuban mother of two great sons who died fighting courageously but unsuccessfully for independence in the 19th Century against Spanish soldiers.

    The 78-year-old General Tete Puebla today is a great source of information for Cuba's most famed female guerrilla fighter Celia Sanchez. Tete and Celia fought together against Batista soldiers and after winning their Revolutionary War Tete is a General today while Celia, who died of cancer at age 59 in 1980, was an ultra-powerful decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba till the day she died. Tete, of course, agrees with Celia's historic quotation as depicted above by The Woman Project.org: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." This week, as the baseball agreement between Cuba and the USA is garnering headlines in both nations, the Celia Sanchez quotation, I believe, deserves to be dusted off to counter the Mario Diaz-Balart "message" sent to President Trump instructing him to veto the baseball agreement that has thrilled 11 million baseball-loving Cubans on the island. For seven decades now generations of cowardly American citizens have allowed their democracy to harm totally innocent people in a much smaller island nation to appease the greed and revenge of a few rich and powerful Cuban-Americans. And during those seven decades sanctimonious Americans have been quick to condemn a China or a Russia if they remotely did the same dastardly things. Perhaps, Americans need a Tete Puebla or a Celia Sanchez to show them what guts and patriotism is all about. But at the moment, what America has is a Trump and a whole lot of Diaz-Balarts!!!

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Significant Cuban Changes

Facing New Realities!!
{Thursday, December 20th, 2018}

     Cuba has a new Twitter-friendly, television-friendly, non-Castro, and non-revolutionary President in former Education Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel. And early in 2019 Cuba will have its first new Constitution since the 1970s. The new Constitution omits the word Communism to stress a fresher Socialist-style Chinese and Vietnamese market-oriented economy. All this week President Diaz-Canel is feeling some heat from the Cuban parliament...its National Assembly...that appears more attuned to a population of 11.4 million Cubans who are impatient with the economy. Earlier this week Diaz-Canel predicted a 1% growth for 2018 and about the same for 2019, blaming the U. S. embargo for at least an additional "$4.3 billion" loss in revenue for 2018 because of added sanctions imposed by the USA Trump administration.

    All this week at the National Assembly session, President Diaz-Canel has been pressured about the economy by the parliament's Economic Affairs Committee. He replied, "We have our own structural and operational problems but those things, too, relate to the criminal blockade imposed by the United States that prohibits us from dealing with financial institutions and having access to material that we need, even from friendly nations that are afraid of U. S. power."

    When reminded by the dominant female members of the Economic Affairs Committee about the impatience of the Cuban people regarding improved housing, President Diaz-Canel said, "The fundamental issue is the local production of material, and I am already seeing that the problem is urgently addressed, even as I reach out to such friends as a powerful Vietnamese company that is now constructing a major facility in the Economic Zone at our ultra-modern and important Mariel Port."

     At center stage during this week's parliamentary session is Cuba's Secretary of the Council of State Homero Acosta. He reported on the island-wide discussions at 24,000 sites leading up to the final implementation of the new Constitution early in 2019. He said, "Between Aug. 15-Nov. 15 we had 133,681 discussions of the new Constitution. 8,945,521 Cubans participated. 2,125 proposals were considered. 3% of the proposals were opposed and have been omitted. 62% were favored and are included. The rest are still being debated across the island."

  As President Diaz-Canel listened, Homero Acosta explained that the new Constitution will guarantee sexual freedom for everyone, the right to legal assistance for all, the right to decent housing, increases in remuneration for workers, and more direct emphasis on direct elections.

     As Homero Acosta out-lined the tenets of the new Constitution, the National Assembly deputies, now younger and more female-oriented than in the past, followed along and often formulated questions.

     President Diaz-Canel not only accepts a more powerful role for the entire National Assembly in Cuba, he orchestrated such things as younger deputies, more black Cubans, and more females.

     The image above, taken at the National Assembly session on December 18-2018, also reflects another dictate of President Diaz-Canel. He has insisted that his Ministers explain themselves regularly in "our outstanding broadcast media." This photo shows Bruno Rodriguez, Cuba's Foreign Minister, being quizzed by Leticia Martinez Hernandez, one of the outstanding broadcast journalists on the island. She asked, "If the Trump administration has reversed all of the positive advantages we had with the Obama administration, how are you dealing with that situation?" Bruno replied, "I have told my counterpart in the United States, Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that Cuba is willing and ready at anytime to sit down and discuss our differences and our cooperative measures. We only insist on being treated with respect and equally as a sovereign nation." Cuba also is trying harder to present its side of the U.S.-Cuban equation by, for example, putting videos this week on YouTube for all to see that includes the comments of Bruno Rodriguez, President Diaz-Canel, and Homero Acosta pertaining to this week's important parliamentary session in Havana.

    For example, on several YouTube videos emerging from this week's National Assembly session in Havana, Cuba is reminding the world to ask this question: "Is there any other small nation other than Cuba that could have survived the U. S. 'Criminal Blockade' since 1962? For example, what about Canada and what about Mexico. They are major allies and trade partners of the United States. But what if they had been the victims of the Blockade for six decades, the victim of military, terrorist, and assassination attacks for all those decades? If Canada and Mexico had been subjected to all those things for six decades, do you think their economies, and indeed their governments, would have survived all these years since 1959, which is the year our Revolution triumphed and the year the United States and the Counter Revolutionary factions began trying to regain control of our island? Answer that question and then let's have sane and honest discussions, because just pretending that the Superpower is always right and that Cuba is always wrong is merely a capitulation to the strength of the world Superpower." 

     Meanwhile, as of this week Cuba's FCB -- the Federation of Cuban Baseball -- has reached an important and sane agreement with Major League Baseball in the USA. Now all 30 MLB teams can sign Cuban players in the same manner players from Japan, Taiwan, etc., are signed. Also, like the pro leagues in Japan, Taiwan, etc., the FCB will now get the payment of a reasonable release fee. Prior to this agreement, much-coveted Cuban players were often victims of unsavory agents, human traffickers, etc., when they opted to play with MLB teams. So now, even in the age of Trump, this FCB-MLB agreement is both important and very sane, and something that the officials in baseball-mad Cuba have long sought to protect their players from both danger and discrimination. Also, baseball seasons in U. S. and Cuba are in different months, so, if overlapping contracts allow it, some MLB Cuban players may now also play some FCB games, something their adoring fans on the island would love to see and something they richly deserve.

     Los Angeles Dodgers' outfielder Yasiel Puig, like all of the many Cuban players now in the U. S. Major Leagues, had to defect from Cuba. He was kidnapped, held for millions of ransom dollars, tortured, and threatened with death. With the new FCB-MLB agreement, Cuban players would no longer have to defect and, for the first time, they would be treated like Major League prospects from all other countries. There is, however, one possible problem: President Trump can block it or sharply amend it. Puig, who was back home in Cuba this month, has loudly urged the U. S. Major Leagues to treat Cubans like all others.

    Baseball in Cuba, from Little League fields on up to the island's powerful professional teams, is played with a religious-like fervor.

  Cuban boys fiercely love baseball.

       One of Cuba's most popular television news anchors, Rosy Amaro Perez, is shown above being interviewed herself while she was on an important journalistic assignment in Nicaragua earlier this month.

    Being Cuban, Rosy Amaro Perez is passionate about baseball. Although very busy as a journalist in Nicaragua for a week this month, Rosy spent every possible night watching baseball {above} at Dennis Martinez Stadium, named for a Nicaraguan pitcher who spend 19 years in the U. S. Major Leagues. This week on Cuban television and on social media pages, Rosy has heralded the FCB-MLB agreement.

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