9.2.23

BIDEN WANTS TO TALK ABOUT CUBA!!!

YES!!!

    This week -- on Feb. 7th-2023 -- U. S. President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union speech to the American people and to the  535 members of the U. S. Congress. The speech was more than an hour long and, of course, he never mentioned the word "Cuba" not even one time. Yet, thanks to a noisy microphone, we now know that "Cuba" was very much on the President's mind starting when he made his way to the podium to deliver his speech at a time when mammoth domestic and foreign issues are seemingly overwhelming the 80-year-old President...and yet the U. S. President had Cuba on his mind!!!!
     It so happens that President Biden, on his way to deliver his State of the Union speech in Congress this week, apparently forgot that there were microphones picking up his verbal greetings to members of Congress. Therefore we know that, when he reached the line where powerful Cuban-American U. S. Senator Bob Menendez stood, President Biden said this surprising and amazing sentence to Bob Menendez: "I gotta talk to you about Cuba." It was/is a fantastic sentence!!!!!!
    "Bob, I gotta talk to you about Cuba." While the U. S. mainstream media, as always, is accustomed only to dealing with anti-Cuba propaganda, this sentence alone is extremely interesting, important, and was/is not propaganda.
    If the Democrat President of the United States, Joe Biden, actually plans to make new and important decisions regarding Cuba, he would first to have the permissions of, first, Democrat Senator Bob Menendez and, secondly, Republican Senator Marco Rubio. One of the undemocratic problems with the U. S. Cuban policies is the fact only a handful of powerful Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans, such as Menendez and Rubio, are allowed to make U. S. decisions on things such as the Embargo/Blockade of Cuba even though the majority of Americans, Cuban-Americans, and people around the world oppose it. "Bob, I need to talk you about Cuba." It is believed that President Biden made that drastic sentence to Senator Menendez to ask if he -- the President -- could made some decisions to ease the drastic EMBARGO-BLOCKADE on Cuba that has existed since February 8th of 1962!!!!!!!
   In America's two-party political system both President Biden and Senator Menendez are Democrats, not Republicans.
     It is believed that President Biden wants to ease the Blockade on Cuba that, with near-unanimity votes in the United Nations each year, reveals that most of the world wants to end the endless genocide against innocent families in Cuba. "Bob, I need to talk to you about Cuba." But this amazing sentence Biden said to Menendez right before the State of the Union speech this week apparently confirms that the President of the United States knows he has to get the permission of a powerful Counter Revolutionary Cuban-American before he can alter a drastic Cuban policy that has shamed the United States for over six decades...while it also drastically continues to punish generations of innocent Cuban families in Cuba while, of course, empowering and enriching certain Cubans in the United States.
      Many observers believed that President Biden, the Democrat, would change many of the extremely punitive and draconian Cuban decisions made by his predecessor, the Republican President Trump. But halfway through his 4-year term as President, Biden has been unwilling or unable to do much in that regard. Perhaps he is at least trying to do something about the image the BLOCKADE presents to the world.

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8.2.23

Cuba No Longer Competitive in Baseball!!!

 

   Today -- February 8th, 2023 -- this is today's score as Panama beat Cuba 10-to-4 in Caracas. Cuba has now lost 6 games and won just 1 in the 65th Caribbean Baseball Classic being played in two Major League-caliber stadiums in Venezuela. This is a heralded regional event that Cuba in the past dominated but this year Cuba is the only non-competitive nation. The other 7 teams -- Mexico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Curacao, and Puerto Rico -- are very competitive!!! Baseball-loving Cubans on the island are surprised and brokenhearted with the results from Venezuela this month, especially as the well-attended games are being well-covered by ESPN Deportes and other media sources.
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7.2.23

Baseball-loving Cuba Embarrasses Itself in Caracas

 

    In this beautiful baseball stadium in Caracas this afternoon {February 6th, 2023} baseball-loving Cuba again looked like the nation not trying to win games in the 65th Caribe Series. The other seven nations -- Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Curacao -- all appear to be trying mightily to win the Series that is now halfway through its ten-day run that ends on February 10th. The heated competition by the other teams has exacerbated Cuba's lackluster efforts because ESPN Deportes is broadcasting the action for baseball fans to judge for themselves. Cuba's 1-5 record is the only non-competitive result so far and includes Cuba's embarrassing 20-3 loss to Venezuela and then 4 other losses Cuba has lost by just one run...embarrassingly. Today Cuba got good pitching from Cesar Garcia and Andy Vargas but their teammates weirdly gave the game away. Leading 3-2 in the top of the 9th inning, Cuba ended the inning by having a runner getting tagged out at the plate. Then in the last of the 9th with two out and still leading 3-2, the Cuban second baseman weirdly, instead of ending the game with a win, made an error to allow the tying run to score. Then the next batter for Puerto Rico also hit another grounder to second base that scored the winning run and ended the game with yet another Cuban one-run loss. Thus, as much as Cubans love baseball, this embarrassment in the 65th Caribe Series is disheartening. It makes fans wonder...will the same thing happen to Cuba in the 20-nation 5th World Baseball Classic that starts next month with Cuba opening in faraway Taiwan against the Netherlands. ??
😕
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6.2.23

Cuba Is Losing Its Love & Fame For Baseball?

As U. S. Sanctions Take A Toll!!

    The 65th Caribbean Baseball Series is currently being held in two Major League-caliber stadiums in Caracas. Just like it won three Olympic Gold Medals in a row in baseball, Cuba once dominated events like the "Caribe Series"...but no longer. The 2023 Series is now in its 5th day and the 8 nations will continue playing until the Title Game on February 10th, 2023. After losing 5-4 to Colombia today {Feb. 6th-2023}, Cuba has the worst record at 1-and-4 and Cuba earlier embarrassed its baseball reputation with a 20-3 loss to host Venezuela. The other 7 teams -- Dominion Republic, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Curacao, Puerto Rico, and Panama -- appear quite competitive...led by Venezuela and Mexico with 3-1 records while the favorite Dominicans are just 2-2. The games are being well-attended and some are being televised worldwide by ESPN Deportes. Last night viewers in primetime Sunday watched a brilliantly contested game as Venezuela defeated the Dominican Republic 3-2 with a walk-off hit in the last of the 12th inning of a game that was 0-0 after 9 innings.
   Yes, the Caribbean Series is being played in two Major League-caliber baseball stadiums in Caracas. That is interesting considering that Venezuela, a close ally of Cuba, has long been under massive U. S. economic sanctions that massively affect its economy, including how it trades with other nations. Back in the 1900s, including in the 1940s and 1950s when the U.S.-friendly Batista dictatorship ruled Cuba, the island per capita produced the best baseball players in the world and there was much talk that the U. S. Major Leagues would soon have a team in baseball-loving Havana, but by 1952 a burgeoning anti-Batista/anti-US revolution began in Cuba, ending the chance of Havana getting a Major League team. Now in 2023...although tightly sanctioned by the U. S...both Cuba and Venezuela are still sending a plethora of Major League superstars to the 30 U. S. teams where guaranteed long-term salaries of $40-million-a-year are commonplace. All 30 Major League teams have year-around world-class facilities in the Dominican Republic to keep massively training young Dominicans to become superstar Major Leaguers, but at the same time the U. S. has huge sanctions against Cuba & Venezuela, but both somehow also keep sending huge numbers of players to the U. S. Major Leagues.
   In that milieu, when the Caribbean Series ends on February 10th the attention will shift to the World Baseball Classic that starts on March 8, 2023. All of the world's Top Twenty baseball powers will play in the 2023 WBC -- including the top Caribbean nations as well as the United States, Japan, etc. And this year the WBC will be more powerful than ever because now Major League superstars...including many players who now have guaranteed deals paying them upwards of $300 & $400 millions in long-term contracts. The NY Mets, for example, have two pitchers -- Verlander & Scherzer -- that are each being paid salaries of $43.3 million for the 2023 season.
     Above is the potential batting order that the Dominican Republic can use in next month's 20-nation World Baseball Classic. All nine players above are Major League stars...and the top seven are extremely well-paid Superstars!!!! Many parents in the Dominican Republic are lavishly taking advantage of the state-of-the-art and very expensive year-around baseball facilities being lavishly funded by all of the 30 U. S. Major League teams. The WBC line-up shown above includes players with $300+ guaranteed million dollar contracts, a reason that 4-year-old boys in the DR are already starting serious baseball practices.
     This is the batting order that the U. S. might use in the World Baseball Classic and baseball fans can easily see that all nine starters above are Superstars. Mike Trout, the Center Fielder, for example, is being paid $430 million on his guaranteed contract with the Los Angeles Angels; the 9th-place hitter for the U. S. will be shortstop Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox and he is a two-time American League Batting Champion, etc.!!
    Other teams in the WBC will also have many Major League superstars...including Panama, Japan, China, Puerto Rico, Colombia, etc. Even the Netherlands team has several Major League stars, including a shortstop {Xander Bogaerts, born 30 years ago in Aruba} who just signed a new guaranteed $280 million contract with the San Diego Padres, a team that already had two young WBC players  -- Juan Soto & Fernando Tatis Jr. -- signed to guaranteed contracts worth more than $300 million each. And this time even Cuba's WBC team will include MLB stars!! The potential Cuban line-up in the WBC, as shown above, includes Major Leaguers such as Luis Robert in Center Field and Yoan Moncada at Third Base, stars with the Chicago White Sox. Cuba's first game in the World Baseball Classic will be in faraway Taiwan on March 8th against the Netherlands, which has 4 Major Leaguers including the very rich Xander Bogaerts.
    While most Major League teams are allowing their Superstars to play in the World Baseball Classic, Ronald Acuna Jr. -- the Superstar Center Fielder for the Atlanta Braves -- is being denied a chance to play for his native Venezuela. The Braves are worried he will get injured before the Major League season begins. As shown above, Acuna is begging the Braves to allow him to play in the WBC for a very strong Venezuelan team.
     And, yes, even Cuba might have a strong team in the World Baseball Classic starting in March...but the ultra-powerful Dominicans and Americans, with all of those obscene salaries, figure to fight for the championship after they both survive some strong competition. As the headline above indicates, for some reason the U. S. has chosen to ease its harsh Sanctions, Embargoes, and Blockades against Cuba enough to permit the besieged island nation to use some Cuban-born Major League players, perhaps giving Cuba a chance to compete somewhat fairly in the WBC. Incredible!!
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4.2.23

From Cuba on February 4th-2023

    With offices in both Havana and Miami, the fair and excellent reporters at On Cuba News are your best sources for daily news and photos from and about Cuba. Otherwise too much of the media insight from Cuba, especially in the propaganda-obsessed U. S. media, is terribly slanted in favor of the six-decade-old U. S. Embargo that remains designed to fully starve the Cuban economy. Below are some honest photos and captions from Cuba today -- February 4th-2023 -- by On Cuba News:
    Also today -- on Feb. 4th-2023 -- are two interesting photos from Havana from two notable photographers Roberto Suarez and Victor Toledo. These last two photos were posted on Facebook today, revealing insight into the island.
     The two above Suarez-Toledo photos today -- February 4th, 2023 -- show a food market as Cuba stresses entrepreneurs that will purchase farm products grown in Cuba and make a profit selling them; and the other photo shows Cubans fishing from Havana's famous Malecon wall while in front of them yet another high-rise hotel is being built. Embargoed, Revolutionary Cuba is many things on February 4th, 2023 -- and all of them are interesting.

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3.2.23

Biden White House Thinks of Cuba {a little}

 How About That???

      It is true, yes, that the UK's Simon Calder is known as the world's top Travel Writer. Thus he is familiar with the U. S. Embargo of Cuba that, since 1962, has been designed to starve the Cuban economy by making sure that the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island is not the tourist mecca that it should be. So, in this first weekend of February in 2023 it is interesting to note that Simon Calder had devoted a long update on what he calls "US u-turns on Cuba tourists."
    As a world-famed Travel Writer, Simon Calder is well aware of how the last two U. S. Presidents -- Trump & Biden -- have tussled with Cuba, which is, uh, on "Washington's list of 'state sponsors of terrorism'" -- which is one of the "reasons" for Washington to continue into a Seventh Decade of imposing the Embargo on Cuba that, among other reasons, tries to strangle Cuba's tourism so as to strangle the island's overall economy.
       Meanwhile...the U. S. media remains obsessed with anti-Cuban propaganda as espoused by extreme Counter Revolutionary U. S. Cubans and their acolytes...always ignoring worldwide opinion as well as most Cuban-Americans, such as Carlos Lazo. A Cuban-born professor from Seattle, Carlos is always campaigning somewhere against the Embargo. Today -- February 3rd of 2023 -- Carlos took his message to the streets of Miami. His BRIDGES of LOVE organization also flies planes loaded with supplies of food and medicine to help the besieged families on the island of Cuba. While the mainstream media in the United States lacks the integrity to report on Carlos Lazo's passionate love for Cuban families, his strong presence on Social Media networks is fueling BRIDGES of LOVE.    Meanwhile...Haydee Milanes, one of the world's greatest singers, says: "Actually, I'm in Havana."
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2.2.23

Cuba In the First Week of February-2023

 One News Source Reports Truth About the Embargo!

     One media source that has offices in both Havana and Miami -- On Cuba News -- is unique because it actually reports honest and unbiased news regarding the ongoing conundrum that is known as Havana-Miami Relations and U.S.-Cuba Relations. For example, the photo above on a street in Havana shows Cubans trying eagerly to withdrawn their money from a bank...perhaps to then migrate to nearby Miami, as hundreds of thousands of Cubans are actually doing during the two years of the Biden administration in Washington. WHY? It is important to know why that is happening and it is important to know how much the extremely cruel and undemocratic, six-decade-old U. S. Embargo/Blockade is so powerfully causing that to happen in February of 2023. The Miami Herald and the rest of the U. S. media will not provide honest and unbiased information about why there is currently a vast and often dangerous migration of Cubans to Miami. But again today -- February 2nd, 2023 -- On Cuba News reports truthfully and insightfully about the current mass migration of Cubans to Miami and the U. S.
   From Manzanillo, Cuba, Arturo Arango is a respected journalist/author with honest insight into why a record number of Cubans are migrating to the United States.
    Today -- February 2nd, 2023 -- the above article today in On Cuba News explains honestly and truthfully why the ongoing Cuban migration to the United States has already reached new heights...many times more than the famed 1980 Mariel Boatlift that ended with about 125,000 Cubans migrating to the U. S. with approval of both Fidel Castro and the United States. The article above features Alex Fleites of On Cuba News interviewing Arturo Arango to learn why a record number of Cubans are currently migrating to the United States. The article today, for example, includes the paragraph shown below that begins with this sentence: "The great theme continues to be material survival, day to day." In other words, the U. S. Embargo -- with starvation themes that have existed since 1962 -- has reached a crescendo in February of 2023 that, more than ever, is affecting the "survival" of Cuban families on the island. Perhaps it is time for the U. S. media, the U. S. government, and the U. S. people to admit what they are doing to innocent Cuban families in Cuba.
The longest genocide in history?
The cruelest EMBARGO in history???
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cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

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