20.2.20

USA's NEW Cuban Dictator

Americans Are Not Supposed To Care!!
      Most Americans have no idea who Mauricio Claver-Carone is. Yet, if in February of 2020 Americans read or hear about genocide being committed by the USA against masses of Cubans on the island, Claver-Carone is considered by insiders to be the orchestrator. If USA-backed coups against Latin American nations considered friendly to Cuba have recently happened, as in Bolivia, or being lavishly threatened in nations like Venezuela and Nicaragua, Claver-Carone is perhaps the orchestrator. If companies in the USA or in important USA-friendly nations are being punished and subjected to lavish fines because of doing business with Cuba, Claver-Carone is probably the orchestrator. If...as is reported frequently in Freedom of Information-acquired details by Tracey Eaton's incredibly important CUBA MONEY PROJECT blog...totally obscene tax dollars are lavishly and routinely devoted to destroying Cuba and BEING showered on little nations to persuade them to be anti-Cuba, Claver-Carone is also in charge of that new avalanche of tax dollars. If totally innocent people in important USA-friendly nations, such as Canada, are being punished because of tangible ties to Cuba, Claver-Carone is almost surely the orchestrator. In other words, Americans should at least know who the hell Claver-Carone IS and WHY he is allowed to do what he IS DOING. Yet, in his apparent role as America's new Trump-anointed Cuban dictator on U. S. soil, Mauricio Claver-Carone clearly has emerged as a totally unchecked Superman atop America's Foreign Affairs totem pole. For example:

    This photo is courtesy of the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. The CBC reports that David Carbery, shown on the left here with his late father Bill Carbery, is flummoxed as a victim of the Trump administration's genocidal sanctions against Cuba that are designed to totally destroy the island's economy for the purpose of enticing the starving and deprived Cuban people to rise up and overthrow their Revolutionary government, a ploy that hasn't worked in 6+ decades. And it hasn't and won't happen because two generations of Cubans on the island do not want a return of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that was chased off the island, all the way to Miami as it turned out, way back on January 1, 1959.
     Meanwhile, in February of 2020, the Trump administration's genocidal starvation tactics now intend to starve Cubans on the island into submission. The scheme -- fueled by the USA's uniquely influential status as the world's economic and military superpower -- is able and willing to punish anyone in the world -- such as David Carbery in Canada -- in order to recapture the nearby island of Cuba on behalf of the Batistiano denizens that President Trump believes will deliver to him Florida's crucial 29 Electoral Votes in this November's presidential election. The CBC this week detailed David Carbery's dilemma. His father Bill died on a visit to Cuba. David wanted him buried home in Canada. David needed $2000 to make that happen and he raised the money on a Go Fund Me page. But the money has been blocked for over a year because of the U.S.'s genocidal assaults on Cuba. David told the CBC's journalist Joel Ballard, "It was devastating to me." Yes, in U.S.-friendly nations such as Canada, innocent people and companies and governments are punished by the USA's blistering obsession to regain control of Cuba for a new generation of Batistiano exiles whenever the Republican Party has control of the White House in Washington. While the mainstream U. S. media in the USA is/are afraid to offend the rich and politically powerful Little Havana Cubans in Miami, some unafraid foreign outlets such as the CBC, the BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, El Paisetc., do report on episodes such as David Carbery has endured concerning his father Bill.
Claver-Carone APPOINTED by Trump.
       The unique U.S.-Cuba conundrum evolved into essentially a Cuban-U.S. dual government after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959. In that milieu, Americans need to know who is actually dictating the Cuban phase of America's government. I believe that man is Mauricio Claver-Carone. And how he garnered such power is interesting, considering that he emerged from mostly obscure but money-laced spigots and bases such as the US-Cuba Democracy PAC and as the Editor of Capitol Hill Cubans.
      All of his adult life Mauricio Claver-Carone, shown in the red tie, has been fanatically engaged in overthrowing Revolutionary Cuba. Mostly his forte has been raising massive buckets of money that has been powerfully used, among other things, to influence members of the U. S. Congress to support such things as the Batistiano-written Helms-Burton Act that since the 1990's has shoveled untold pipelines of tax dollars from Washington to Little Havana while also funding massive Little Havana efforts to destroy the island's Revolutionary government to pave the way for the return of the Batistianos. Claver-Carone, totally unchecked, has epitomized exactly what the New York Times cogently depicted when it concluded a famous editorial with these exact words: "There is, finally, something indecent about vociferous exiles living safely in Miami prescribing more pain for their poorer cousins." That remains the best and most honest appraisal of what Cuban zealots like Claver-Carone have been able to do for over six decades in the lavish but brutal Miami-to-Washington corridor. The plethora of money-crazed schemes havn't recaptured Cuba but it has caused massive "pain" for the "poorer cousins" in Cuba while also creating a massive array of millionaires and billionaires in the Little Havana-Miami bailiwick/enclave. After all, especially in Claver-Carone's rarefied world, MONEY is first and RECAPTURING CUBA is second...and whatever is in third and fourth place are totally miniscule -- including, I believe, DEMOCRACY and PASSION. The Naples {Fla.} Daily News profiled Claver-Carone in an article written by Alexandra Glorioso entitled "Closer look At The Man Advising Trump On Cuba." It said: "'As a boy when Claver-Carone played football in Orlando, if you ever mentioned Fidel Castro he would go berserk,' said Farlan Bailey, Claver-Carone's longtime friend who graduated with him from Bishop Moore Catholic High School in 1993." Of course, as a Cuban, Claver-Carone also benefited from the fact that the first-generation of exiles who fled the Cuban Revolution in 1959 had MORE THAN ENOUGH money and FIREPOWER, plus extra pushes from powers like the Catholic Church and the Bush dynasty, to easily take over Miami and Florida financially and politically, quickly creating a new very rich haven headquartered and governed in Little Havana. Additionally, Cuban students had easy entrance to top universities, including {ESPECIALLY} top Law Schools. Thus, Claver-Carone's "berserk" mentality regarding Revolutionary Cuba had numerous outlets, particularly because the rich and politically powerful Bush dynasty was totally aligned with the most fervent Little Havana Cubans, especially billionaire Jorge Mas Canosa...not to mentioned well-funded, renowned, and self-avowed anti-Revolutionary terrorists such as Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.
    But even BEYOND most of his fervent...and "berserk"... Cuban dreams, Mauricio Claver-Carone...after always riding the lucrative coattails of the Bush dynasty...gained his greatest power only after Donald Trump incredibly became inaugurated President of the United States in January of 2017. While his money-prowess and Bush ties had him working in the U. S. Treasury, etc., Trump has made  Claver-Carone the dictator of Western Hemisphere Affairs within the State Department. Of course, Cuba is in the Western Hemisphere...and so were/are Cuba's closest allies such as Bolivia, which recently experienced a coup that ousted a long-time Cuba-friendly President and replaced him with an anti-Cuban/U.S.-friendly government that immediately kicked Cubans out of Bolivia. Of course, Venezuela and Nicaragua now remain powerful Cuban allies in the Western Hemisphere but their governments too are being massively targeted by powerful U. S. sanctions and by powerful U.S.-backed dissidents thirsting for more coups. Therefore, Claver-Carone, taking full advantage of Trump's desire for Little Havana's support heading up to the November-2020 election, has more power than he ever dreamed of.
       For example, the financial and political power of Little Havana's berserk anti-Cuban fervor is perpetually codified and  attains legality because it resides in the sanctified Helms-Burton Act, which was crammed through Congress for eternity by all-time Little Havana/Cuban-born zealots Jorge Mas Canosa from Santiago de Cuba and Lincoln Diaz-Balart who was born in Havana when his father Rafael was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship. But not even President George W. Bush from 2000-2008, a presidency TOTALLY ALIGNED WITH AND OBLIGED TO LITTLE HAVANA, would NOT activate Title III of Helms-Burton because even Bush considered it too cruel...too GENOCIDAL...to impose on the masses of innocent Cubans on the island. But with Mauricio Claver-Carone as the current Western Hemisphere Affairs dictator, President Trump activated Title III.
     The Bush dynasty's anointment of Jorge Mas Canosa as the Cuban dictator on U. S. soil solidified a Cuban government within the bowels of the U. S. government. The great Julia E. Sweig in her seminal book "What Everyone Needs To Know About Cuba" explained that Mas Canosa was advised to study the unchecked and ultra-powerful Israeli AIPAC lobbying superpower and then replicate it for his new Cuban government, and then Mas Canosa founded CANF, the ultra-powerful Cuban American National Foundation. Mas Canosa became the first Little Havana billionaire and he was totally unchallenged by all Republican administrations, not just the three Bush administrations.
     Even Democratic Presidents such as Bill Clinton were forced to bend to Jorge Mas Canosa when it came to drastic dealings that assaulted Cuba and enriched certain Cubans in Miami.
   After founding the Cuban American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa could make sure that Little Havana had a firm grip on all Republican presidents as well as on the 535-member U. S. Congress that to this day, which is long after the billionaire Mas Canosa died in 1997 at age 58. But still to this day the U. S. Congress is still too afraid of Little Havana or too fond of Little Havana's money to challenge Little Havana's politics. For example, to this day Congress makes sure the 6-decades-old Embargo against Cuba stays in place, that all the cruel and lucrative aspects of Mas Canosa's prized Helms-Burton Act remain LEGAL, and truly lavish pipelines of tax dollars still flow from Washington to Miami to support such things as Mas Canosa's prized Radio-TV Marti operation in Miami that every member of the U. S. Congress has known for three decades is nothing more and nothing less than a laughable anti-Cuba propaganda machine whose prime purpose to this DAY is to enrich selected Cubans in Miami, as reported by Jeffrey Kofman of ABC-TV News and many other legitimate journalists, and recently reported in detail by the highly respected Tracey Eaton on his must-read Cuba Money Project blog, which gets Freedom of Information data to trace tax dollars flowing every day to Miami to support and enrich anti-Cuba schemes. Recently, as posted by Cuba Money Project, the exact and obscene tax-paid salaries of hundreds of Radio-TV Marti "journalists" in Miami are listed by Tracey Eaton. The same undisputed source also regularly uses Freedom of Information data to graphically list the exact solicitations that the U. S. government routinely makes during all Republican administrations to enlist more and more highly paid would-be anti-Cuban zealots. American taxpayers and Democracy-lovers who don't dial up Cuba Money Project don't have any idea how much of their money is being used daily to hurt everyday Cubans on the island and to massively enrich already rich Cubans in Little Havana.
An undisputed and valuable source!!!
     There are many factual documentations of now the Bush dynasty has sponsored Cuban dictators on U. S. soil, starting with Jorge Mas Canosa. But the best  such details are included in Julia E. Sweig's classic book "CUBA: WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW" and that includes the latest edition that includes the cover photo of President Obama's very friendly Air Force One airplane arriving over Havana in 2016.
      Since 1959 the only U. S. President with the guts to challenge Little Havana Cuban extremists regarding Cuba has been Obama, but Obama was replaced by Trump in 2017. Trump quickly began destroying every positive thing Obama had done to normalize relations with Cuba, meaning Trump has been a Godsend for the handful of most extremist Cuban-Americans now in Little Havana and in the United States Congress.
     Thus, President Obama has been the only U. S. President in the last six decades to have the guts and decency to seriously try to end the U. S. embargo of Cuba, which shames America and is abhorent to all decent people around the world.
     With no opposition, once anointed by the Bush dynasty as the USA's Cuban dictator, Mas Canosa, shown standing over President George H. W. Bush in the above photo, easily dictated lucrative anti-Cuban/PRO-Little Havana laws that still exist to this day.
      And all Republican Presidents, not just the Bushes, always smile broadly when signing pro quid quo legislation and then always handed out souvenir pens to Counter Revolutionary Little Havana extremists like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Jorge Mas Canosa, the two Little Havana Cuba-born extremists who are gleefully receiving souvenir pens from their equally gleeful benefactor, President George H. W. Bush.
    When Jeb Bush ended up in Miami, he well knew only fierce anti-Castro/Cuban-born extremists totally controlled the political and financial strings in Little Havana and Florida. So, of course, as shown above, paving the way for his two terms as Florida's governor Jeb Bush was the Campaign Manager who put Little Havana's Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the U. S. Congress in 1979. She stayed there as an ultra-powerful anti-Cuba legislative extremist till 2019 when, finally, she resigned to pursue other Cuban agendas.
       Of course, during George W. Bush's eight years as President starting in 2000, in a scenario created/pioneered by the Bush dynasty years earlier, every Cuba-born/anti-Castro SUPERSTAR such as Otto Reich was/are routinely appointed to  strategically important anti-Cuban positions that, of course, also had as a prime byproduct the financial enrichment of Little Havana denizens and their sycophants. And once established by the Bush dynasty, ALL REPUBLICAN administrations have done the same thing to continue the extreme pro quid quo expansions of the wealth and political power of Little Havana's often cancerous influence within the realms of the United States democracy. Following Democratic administrations, Republican Presidents like Trump routinely re-cycle Bush Cubans like Otto Reich back to positions of power.
     This was the handshake that led to the evisceration of Democratic President Barack Obama's historic effort to normalize relations with Cuba. Republican President Donald Trump, starting in January of 2017, turned over the USA's Cuban policy to two of Little Havana's prime contributions to the U. S. Congress -- Mario Diaz-Balart, whose dad Rafael was a top Minister in the Batista dictatorship and who then in 1959 created the first anti-Castro paramilitary unit in South Florida; and Marco Rubio, who the U. S. media is obliged to call a Little Havana choirboy but the top investigative journalist in Washington, Ken Silverstein, calls "heads and shoulders above everyone else in Washington when it comes to corruption and chicanery." It is known that President Trump personally despises Diaz-Balart and Rubio but fully realizes that, politically, he needs them to remain President and to be re-elected to a second 4-year term in November of 2020.
      Thus, in February of 2020 Mauricio Claver-Carone, Marco Rubio, and Mario Diaz-Balart -- three of the planet's most fiercest Counter Revolutionary Cubans -- have total control of America's decades-old effort to regain control of Cuba. And Rubio and Diaz-Balart EASILY persuaded President Trump to put Claver-Carone in charge of Western Hemisphere Affairs, which enables this unchecked trio to threaten or reward other nations in the region regarding whether or not they are pro-Cuba or anti-Cuba. IN OTHER WORDS, in a Republican administration like Trump's, only three unchecked and self-serving anti-Cuban extremists are allowed to make decisions pertaining to Cuban and Western Hemisphere policies...and yet this generation that is supposed to be guarding the USA's great Democracy simply doesn't give a damn...not if the topic is CUBA!!!
     Also, of course, Americans in 2020 are not supposed to be embarrassed when President Trump goes to Little Havana in Miami and tells the few remaining BRIGADE ATTACK 2506 survivors that he will recapture Cuba for them before the last of them die of old age. BRIGADE 2506 led the April-1961 land-invasion of the overall air-land-and-sea attack on Revolutionary Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs. It turned out to be a humiliating defeat for Little Havana and the USA...and a second monumental triumph for Fidel Castro, almost as huge as his revolutionary victory on Jan. 1-1959. So, when President Trump says such things as the Brigade 2506 Battle Flag and the Bay of Pigs humiliation are glorious testimonies of America's great history, Americans in 2020 are supposed to applaud and meekly agree...LEST LITTLE HAVVANA WILL GET MAD.
       Even in the world's most famed Democracy, six decades of continuous propaganda regarding the Cuban narrative has  fatally altered the America that we once knew.
      And today in 2020, I believe that Americans have the right  to know if Mauricio Claver-Carone is currently dictating all of the USA's Cuban decisions as well as all Cuban-related decisions involving other nations in the Western Hemisphere. Remember, the Naples {Fla.} Daily News told us that Claver-Carone even as a football player for Bishop Moore Catholic High School would go "berserk" even at the mention of "Castro's" name. Presumably, Claver-Carone still goes "berserk" if he hears or reads "Castro's" name although Fidel died at AGE 90 in Havana on Oct. 25-2016.
But the "Fidel" legacy still rules Cuba.
       Meanwhile, Mauricio Claver-Carone -- the Cuban-American who fanatically goes "berserk" just hearing or seeing the name "Castro," --  still has nine months left in 2020, thanks to President Trump, to overthrow Castro's Cuba. And, of course, if Trump is re-elected in November, Claver-Carone will have another four years, if needed, to go berserk trying to re-capture Cuba. It's apparent, of course, that Claver-Carone believes he has both the U. S. TREASURY and the Commander-in-CHIEF to support his dire Cuban efforts.
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16.2.20

USA's Gruesome Cuban Shame

Cardinal Dolan Tells THE WORLD!!
         In this mostly Wonderful Wide World all of the decent and intelligent people abhor rare instances whenever a criminal element in a powerful nation is allowed to punish or eviscerate masses of totally innocent people in a much smaller nation. It is called genocide. In the world's largest Democracy, Americans for decades have been propagandized to shout LOUDLY if a powerful nation like Russia or China commits anything approaching genocide in their regions against people in much smaller countries. BUT INCREDIBLY, the last two generations of Americans have strangely and successfully been proselytized into not only accepting but also participating in genocide against masses of totally innocent Cubans on the nearby Caribbean island to appease two generations of exiles chased to the USA by the Cuban Revolution's overthrow of the US-backed Batista-MAFIA dictatorship way back on January 1, 1959. This week in mid-February of 2020 the very decent and very intelligent Cardinal Timothy Dolan has been in Cuba observing the effects of the American genocide against Cuban families. Cardinal Dolan, the famed Archbishop of New York, himself was severely punished on this trip. He wanted to visit as many Cuban cities and towns he possibly could but to do that he needed air flights. But to his chagrin, the extreme genocide being committed against Cuba by the current Trump administration in Washington has blocked such flights on the Caribbean's largest island. Thus, Cardinal Dolan was subjected to an 11-hour car ride from Santiago de Cuba, the island's second largest city on the southeast, to Havana, the largest city on the northwestern tip. In a ferment effort to starve, deprive, and make miserable the people in Cuba, the USA in 2020 not has only blocked domestic flights but is also fervently restricting international flights to the island and has blocked cruise ships from bringing the much-needed tourisists to the island. Using the USA's incomparable wealth and military power, the United States can also intimidate other nations and foreign companies to capitulate to its Cuban genocide...for example, lavishly levying huge fines or otherwise punishing companies that might have the temerity to exercise some independence by bravely doing business with Cuba. Somehow, Revolutionary Cuba has survived and maintained its hard-earned sovereignty since 1959, and the reason is the basic fact that a return of the US-backed Batistiano and MAFIOSI hoodlums is not a viable OPTIONIn Cuba this week Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who was born 70 years ago in St. Louis, observed the effects of...a powerful nation committing genocide against masses of totally innocent people in a much smaller nation.
     On what was an excruciating 11-hour drive from Santiago to Havana, Cardinal Dolan asked his chauffeur to take him to some small towns. The photo above was taken on the edge of Florida, Cuba. Cardinal Dolan this weekend is telling the world what he has seen and heard from totally innocent Cubans like these. For example, Cardinal Dolan said: "I was especially happy to see young couples and families at the El Cobre shrine and other churches. I was very inspired to see a good number of vocations. I met this priest, a young priest, who has no church. He's the pastor of an important area, and every day he visits a home." Cardinal Dolan this week experienced first hand the genocide the USA is committing against everyday Cubans such as those depicted in the town of Florida, Cuba.
      When a decent and intelligent illuminary such as Cardinal Timothy Dolan visits Cuba in mid-February of 2020 and tells what he sees and hears about the genocide being heaped upon the Cuban people, Americans are not supposed to pay any attention to what he says about what he personally observed. And, perhaps most shameful of all, the mainstream U. S. media, for the most part, is much too intimidated to report what people like Cardinal Doan explain about their trips to Cuba.
          Yet, in all Republican administrations since the 1950s, a mere handful of extremely biased, self-serving, and cruel Cuban Counter Revolutionaries are allowed to dictate the USA's Cuban policies even if genocide is a large component of that diabolical strategy. And of course, extreme pipelines of tax dollars are allowed to continue flowing from Washington's lush spigots to the denizens in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood that since 1959 has already benefited from an unchecked ultra-rich and powerful exiled government. In the current Trump administration, for example, self-serving and vicious anti-Cuban zealots Mauricio Claver-Carone, Marco Rubio, and Mario Diaz-Balart can readily dictate USA's Cuban policies even if the rest of the 330 million Americans object and the rest of the 7.2 billion people in the world disapprove. YES, IN 1959 THE CUBAN REVOLUTION CHANGED CUBA. BUT MOSTLY IT CHANGED THE United States of America.
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14.2.20

An HONEST Article About Cuba

Yes, But Rare Indeed!!!
  This photo was taken by renowned Cuban photographer Jamil Lage and was used to illustrate the best international or American article this week about Cuba...and perhaps the most honest one. The article has a two-sentence title: "THE INTERNET IS WIDELY ACCESSIBLE IN CUBA. WHY IS THE U. S. INSISTING IT ISN'T." Well, of course, since 1959 the U. S. government and the intimidated U. S. media have not exactly been in the business of telling the truth about Cuba, instead leaving the Cuban narratives to the Batistiano extremists who fled the victorious Cuban Revolution for the sanctuary of U. S. soil beginning in the wee hours of January 1, 1959. The interesting article underlined in pink above is written by a notable journalist-author who was born in LA but has traveled the world and writes for CBS, PBS, the Australian Broadcast Corporation, and many of the world's best print sources.
        The aforementioned article this week was written by Reese Erlich and it bears repeating: "THE INTERNET IS WIDELY ACCESSIBLE IN CUBA. WHY IS THE U. S. INSISTING IT ISN'T." Like Mr. Ehrlich, I believe that American citizens, considering how many of their tax dollars are being used daily to recapture Cuba, have a right to know that the Internet is widely accessible in Cuba and, furthermore, American citizens also have the right to know why neither the U. S. government nor the U. S. media won't let them know about such things. That's why I suggest Americans dial up this article to know at least this bit of truth about arguably the Caribbean's most beautiful island and certainly its largest and most fascinating sovereign nation. All this is especially true and timely in February of 2020 as America's Little Havana-led President Donald Trump is vowing to once-and-for-all destroy Revolutionary Cuba on behalf of a handful of extremist Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami and in the United States Congress.
     According to Wikipedia, Reese Erlich "visited Cuba for the first time in 1968, which led to a continuing interest in that country." Among Mr. Erlich's best-selling books is: "Dateline Havana: The Real Story of U. S. Policy and the Future of Cuba." So if Reese Erlich knows enough to write a best-selling book about those two topics, surely his cogently researched article this week about why the U. S. "insists" Cuba, which now is "widely" connected to the Internet, is not connected to the Internet is an INTERESTING article. After all, Mr. Urlich is unlike most of the U. S. "journalists" who write {or propagandize} about Cuba but have never been to Cuba and therefore know nothing about the island and its people. Reese Erlich, on the other hand, writes about Cuba and its people FROM Cuba and he obviously is neither too afraid to publish the truth about Cuba nor is he paid to publish lies about Cuba.
     The book "Dateline Havana: The Real Story of U. S. Policy and the Future of Cuba" was written by Reese Erlich.
     And this week's best article about Cuba was written by Reese Erlich, and it has a two-sentence title: "THE INTERNET IS WIDELY ACCESSIBLE IN CUBA. WHY IS THE U. S. INSISTING IT ISN'T."
Uh...Cubans know the Internet too.
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10.2.20

Cuba Plans to Survive Trump

Cuban People Informed Via TV!!
      Born after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictators on January 1, 1959, Miguel Diaz-Canel has been Cuba's President since April of 2018.
         This CNN photo of President Miguel Diaz-Canel was taken a few days ago when the Cuban leader permitted international journalists from CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, etc. to travel with him as he traversed the island telling Cubans to continue resisting what he calls the Trump administration's "genocide against all of you who support this island's revolutionary-achieved sovereignty. But being recaptured by another generation of foreign criminals is not in my DNA, nor yours." Cuba's former Education Minister, Diaz-Canel has instructed his current Ministers to appear regularly on national television and radio programs "to tell the people what each of you are doing on their behalf, if anything. And remember, they  are smart, well educated, and live on this island with us so don't lie to them. That's the stupidest thing we can do."
     Cuba's Minister of Domestic Trade is Betsy Diaz and she appears regularly on national television and radio to update the Cuban people about what is adversely affecting their daily lives. She said during the above session: "As a sovereign small island nation, we are susceptible, as you all well know, to whether a Democrat or Republican administration rules Washington. The Democrat President Obama did his best to be our friend but he was followed by the Republican President Trump who wants to starve and destroy us, even restricting visits and financial support from U. S. Cubans. Since his applying of Helms-Burton Title 3 against us, Trump has blocked or erased all of Obama's positives, causing some energy blackouts as well as shortages of food and other products. I am aware of how this affects you and your children as well as me and my children. I want everyone of you to know that I and other Ministers that you depend on to help you are doing everything we can during this dire situation of foreign crimination aimed at us from Miami and Washington."
      Like other Ministers, Betsy Diaz often speaks to the Cuban people to let them know what Havana is doing to cope with Trump. She uses the island's state-run sophisticated radio and television News and Cultural programs...such as Mesa Redonda.
      Cuban television stations often show and interview Cuban customers trying to purchase things at U.S.-embargoed stores like the one above. Like the woman at the counter above, even when they have money to buy things, there are now shortages.
    The nightly primetime Mesa Redonda {Round Table} program, hosted by Randy Alonso, is the Cuban government's main source for updating the people on developments from Havana, Miami, and Washington. As above, Alonso pointedly grills top Ministers, as President Diaz-Canel suggested.
     A regular on Mesa Redonda is Iset Maritza. She is the head of CIMEX, Cuba's largest commercial corporation. The Trump administration has declared total war against CIMEX in an effort to eviscerate Cuba's economy but Iset Maritza plans to not only keep it viable or perhaps expand it even with Trump in power. In this appearance Ms. Maritza reported, "We have opened about 80 dollar stores and we will open more. We will do anything that we believe will help us survive Trump. We must stay sovereign."
        According to Iset Maritza, "We must remember that Trump will be the U. S. President for the next nine months, and maybe for four years beyond that. Therefore we Ministers that you depend on to help all our people against Trump and the brutal Counter Revolutionaries that control him will also need the support of everyone's perseverance."
      Cuba's Economy Minister Alejandro Gil is shown above appearing on Mesa Redonda. He said, "We must manipulate our regular pesos and collectible pesos with dollarizations that will create more purchasing power for our people. Bear with us on that. It's a work in progress. With your help it will work."
      Cuba's Minister of Finance and Prices is Meisi Bolanos Weiss. On Mesa Redonda she said, "Beginning on February 24th we will begin to sell cars in tradable currencies rather in convertible Cuban pesos as we continue to dollarize swathes of our retail sector."
       Cuba's Finance Minister Meisi Bolanos Weiss also sternly said, "With enough honest people in Washington and enough decent and brave Cuban-Americans in Miami, the Little Havana minority would not be allowed to try to destroy us and then again dominate the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island. But we are a small nation and when criminals run the Superpower USA we must do what we can to survive. The USA's criminal support of Batista's Mafia thugs created the Revolution that at least chased the Mafia criminals to Miami in 1959. From there we did not realize they would criminalize Washington as well as Miami. We believed the U. S. democracy was at least strong enough to prevent that."
      Finance Minister Meisi Bolanos Weiss and Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez Davila regularly update Cubans on progress related to transportation around the island despite the awesome restrictions of "Trump's blockade."
      Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez often talks about "what friendly future Obama-like relations would mean to us in Cuba and to the Cuban business people and others in the United States who want so badly to do commerce with us. Russia, China, Vietnam, and Japan are helping us modernize are railway and bus highway transportation, for example.  America was a false democracy when it allowed the Mafia to brutalize Cuba prior to the Revolution and it is a false democracy now that Trump replaced Obama in the White House. Our only alternative is to struggle and resist when criminals in Miami and in Washington target us. Waiting and hoping for decency from the Superpower that is so close to us is not something we can count on. But even with the U. S. has the economy and military power to block both our imports and exports, we still have to fight back to improve our lives, including our economy."
       This Reuters photo shows vintage American cars, now due to be sold, lined up along Havana's famed Malecon Seawall. They are shown directly across from the 7-story U. S. Embassy that Obama reopened for the first time in six decades but that Trump has since totally gutted. Now Cuba's Ministers claim that the U. S. Embassy in Havana "only exists to fund and train dissidents to destroy honest and meaningful U.S.-Cuban relations."
      Including the vintage, finely-tuned American cars from the 1950s, Cuba also now has many brand-new Russian-made Lada cars that can be hopefully sold beginning on February 24th, 2020, via a new currency revision.
        But, as noted by the words of Cuban Ministers speaking on Mesa Redonda, Cubans on the island are abundantly aware of the "indecency" of President Trump that has followed the "decency" of President Obama. And to combat Trump, Cuba is trying to do all it can.
      This photo reminds Cubans of the day in 2016, his last year in office, that President Obama flew on Air Force One to Havana's Jose Marti Airport. This was the U. S. limousine, bearing U. S. and Cuban flags, that took Obama to visit the Cuban people...the first U. S. President to do so since Herbert Hoover arrived on a warship in 1928 to remind Cubans that America was the dominant power on the island and had been the ruler since the 1898 Spanish-American War. And from 1898 till 1959 the U. S. had been able to do things such as...steal Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1903, team with the Mafia in 1952 to allow rich businessmen to better partake in plundering, brutalizing, and ransacking the island at will, etc., etc. -- at least till the Cuban Revolution intervened in January, 1959. 
      On Cuban television President Obama brought tears to the eyes of millions of Cubans when he said: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." But, of course, in 2016 neither President Obama nor the Cuban people thought that the next U. S. President in 2017 would be Donald Trump, another Republican totally aligned economically and politically with the Counter Revolutionary Cubans who have ruled Republican administrations in Washington since January of 1959, shattering America's once-renowned reputation for decency and democracy.
      An America in 2020 that allows the likes of Marco Rubio, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and Mario Diaz-Balart to dictate America's Cuban policy is as shameful of America was in the 1950s when it allowed Mafia thugs like Fulgencio Batista, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky to dictate Cuban policy.
1950's Luciano, Lansky, & Batista.
Today's Claver-Carone, Rubio, & Diaz-Balart.
 
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cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

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