Breaking the status quo
Header

Why Marco Rubio can’t be taken seriously on Cuba policy

June 10th, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Hard-line hijinks - (0 Comments)

Because everything he utters on the subject is cheap grandstanding (what we Cubans like to call guapería barata) and hardliner red meat, with little connection to reality.

Here’s the latest example. Last week Senator Rubio told FP’s The Cable:

“It remains clear that Cuba is the same totalitarian state today that it has been for decades,” Rubio told The Cable. “This totalitarian state continues to have close ties to terrorist organizations.”

Remains clear? Ok. Since we tallied the island’s 4-year laundry list of economic reforms last October, Cuba has liberalized its migration laws, opened a wholesale market for both state and private businesses, publicly denounced all acts of terrorism, cooperated with the US in the extradition of fugitives, is leading the push for acceptance of gay rights in Latin America, and just passed a law to combat money laundering and financing of terrorist groups. Even the State Department’s 2013 Country Report on Terrorism shows there’s little reason left to keep Cuba on the terrorism list.

You can lambast the Cuban government for many things, such as the continued harassment of Cuban citizens for political reasons (375 temporary detentions last month alone), but in 2013, it is far from clear that Cuba is the same totalitarian state it had been for decades.

Click here for more guapería barata from Marquito. And click here to see what often happens a los que se hacen los guapos.

Ted Cruz takes meaning of “que clase de comemierda!” to brave new level

June 5th, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Hard-line hijinks | US Politics - (2 Comments)

We all know Senator Ted Cruz will say anything – no matter how imbecilic or untrue – to get his smug mug on the news. But to so cheaply exploit the suffering of the Cuban people for political points, well that takes a whole new specie of comemierda:

Speaking with Jon-David Wells of “The Wells Report,” Cruz began by admitting that Obama hadn’t yet “descended to the level of a communist dictatorship” and wasn’t “committing the atrocities” that regimes such as Castro’s were known for. He then said, however, that he noticed some policies “of a similar kind” between the two men.

“Let’s take, for example, the policy of threatening service men and women that if they share their faith they will be court-martialed and thrown out of the military,” he told Wells in an exchange first caught by the Washington Examiner. “It is of a similar kind to the policies that are enforced in dictatorships.”

Cruz went on to recall a story told to him by his father, who fled Cuba in 1957 before Castro took power. According to Cruz, during the communist rise to power, armed soldiers would come into classrooms and tell students to “close their eyes and to pray to God for candy.” They’d then open their eyes and find no candy. Students would then be told to close their eyes again, and this time pray to Castro for candy. Upon opening their eyes, there would be candy on their desks, placed there by the soldiers.

“Integral to an oppressive government is undermining the faith in God and any other higher power that would distract from loyalty to the state,” Cruz concluded.

Just mind-blowing. You have to love how, much like Rubio, Cruz’s Cuba stories are all third-hand. His father left the island years before the revolution, so it has to be “un amigo de un amigo le dijo a mi padre que…”

All the worse because you know that deep down this Princeton and Harvard Law- bred, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General is no dummy. No tiene un pelo de comemierda. He’s trailblazing a path to the 2016 Republican presidential primary by consistently staking positions to the right of every other contender in the party. In other words, solo se HACE el comemierda, cual lo convierte en un requete-comemierda.

Rubio must lose sleep at night knowing he’ll have to really pump up the crazy – and lose any shred of self-respect he may have left – just to keep up with this clown from now until 2016. Sounds absolutely exhausting.

I noticed that if you do a Google Image search of Ted Cruz and “comemierda” no pictures of the Texas Senator come up. I figured I’d change this since rarely has there been a more natural combination of search terms. Here ya go.

Who me comemierda?

 

 

 

While Iran policy gets smart, Cuba policy stays stupid

June 4th, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Cuba policy - (0 Comments)

From The New York Times Editorial Board:

The Obama administration has made a useful modification to its Iran policy by lifting sanctions on companies that want to sell cellphones, laptops, encryption software and other similar technology to ordinary Iranians. This should improve the ability of Iranians to circumvent their government’s unrelenting crackdown on dissenting opinion and communicate with each other and the outside world without reprisal.

…the decision to permit the export of personal communications technology suggests a welcome willingness on Washington’s part to reduce the burden of the sanctions on ordinary Iranians. The directive specifically bans government or commercial sales.

Gee, such a smart idea. So why can’t we do the same for Cuba?

Oh yeah.

El que manda aqui soy yo.

 

What everyone thought of Berta Soler’s message, but no one had the guts to say

June 4th, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Cuban opposition | Hard-line hijinks - (0 Comments)

Kudos to Haroldo Dilla Alfonso on his oped for CubaEncuentro, for saying what we all thought about Berta Soler’s messaging, but no one wanted to say. Soler and the rest of Cuba’s brave dissidents deserve our respect, admiration and support, but we would be doing them a disservice if we don’t speak out when we see their message is not connecting with an audience beyond the dwindling hardline base, and thus failing to propel the cause of a free and democratic Cuba. Dilla’s Alfonso’s words (my translation):

But now let me point to one fact: it is not unreasonable to assume that the vast majority of living Cubans are against the embargo. According to surveys, among Cuban immigrants it is approximately more than half, and it’s not hard to guess that a very high proportion of Cubans living in Cuba reject it.

Consequently, if a politician has in his sights on the population of the island, I think he would be obliged to challenge the blockade / embargo. And if he refuses, he should at least be somewhat more sophisticated than the leader of the Ladies in White was when she called for a “hard hand” to strangle the Cuban government and cause an apocalyptic revolt. But if the target audience of Berta Soler’s speech is the hardline sector of the exile community and the goal is access to U.S. resources and applause, then the “hard hand” is a suitable image for this.

The other consequence is that if I were a resident of the island and had come to sympathize with the humanistic crusade of these brave women, and now I find out that their leader is calling for a “hard hand” against my life and that of my family, and they make their demands on those before me as if they demons…then I’d have every reason to feel frustrated. If there is something these opposition leaders can learn from our post-revolutionary half century is that Cuban nationalist sentiment is crucial as political capital.

 

Cuba’s Communist Youth seduced by Capitalism

May 28th, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Cuban reforms - (0 Comments)

Communism? What communism? As reported by El Universal (my translation):

Starting in June, the Young Communist Union of Cuba (UJC), the Communist Party’s youth branch, will create grassroots organizations in the island’s emerging private sector thanks to ongoing economic reforms by President Raul Castro, local media reported yesterday.

With that decision, the UJC seeks to “keep up with changes in the country and improve its structure, function and tasks”, said Joan Palmero Abel Perez, member of the organization’s national bureau, according to Efe.

Hardliners will surely say this is evidence that Raul’s reforms only benefit those who support the Castro regime.

We would argue it is evidence that even the most hardline supporters of the regime have been seduced by capitalism.

11th Circuit got it right; Florida keeps getting it wrong

May 28th, 2013 | Posted by Alex in Cuba policy | Hard-line hijinks | US Politics - (0 Comments)

By Guillermo Carlo Artiles

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the Southern District of Florida’s decision to enjoin Florida’s Department of Transportation from enforcing the Cuba Amendment.  No, this is not an amendment emanating from (or affecting) the island of 13 million that lies athwart U.S. trade routes.  Rather, it is a state-designed law that seeks to prevent companies conducting business in Cuba or related in any way to a company that conducts business in Cuba—no matter how attenuated the parent-subsidiary relationship—from bidding on public contracts in Florida.  The 11th Circuit ultimately ruled in favor of Odebrecht, the Florida construction company contesting the Cuba Amendment, because the company “demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on its claim that the Cuba Amendment violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”  Essentially, the Cuba Amendment, as a Florida state law, conflicted with federal U.S.-Cuba law, and our Constitution allows for no such thing: federal law is the supreme law.

Florida is now 0 for 2, losing first at the trial court level, and now at the appellate level.  Will the State and the brainchild behind the Cuba Amendment, Gov. Rick Scott, seek certification to be heard before the Supreme Court and have the Supremes potentially strike them out?  Eh, unlikely.

Although not likely to be tested any further, as it stands, the decision is a minor victory for all who oppose the morass of legislation that is el bloqueo against Cuba.  If Florida won, the sanctions would have been beefed up, adding an additional layer of fat to the already plump embargo.

The blockade, or embargo, or unilateral sanctions, or bloqueo—as you wish—are completely futile and have served miserably the ends which they so passionately seek to accomplish: remove Castro(s) from power and give the island a capitalist transplant.  The 11th Circuit highlighted the labyrinth that is U.S.-Cuba legislation and called it “long-standing,” “nuanced,” and “highly calibrated.”  That’s putting it gently.

Long-standing indeed: the embargo celebrated its 50th birthday a few years ago.  The embargo can point to little, if any, successes in its mature life.  Its primary purpose, to sanction Castro(s) out of existence, has surely failed.  Secondary purposes—dissolve socialist sentiments and usher in capitalism; curb human rights abuses; force freedom—all failed.  Havana in 2013, though having taken small steps in the right direction, remains indecipherable from Havana in 1965.

If we want Cuba to change, something has to change—not there, but here, in the United States.  Only we are capable of big change.  Small change in the form of allowing computers on the island is surely necessary for long-term success, but what is needed to bring about true change in Cuba can only be accomplished by America—the land of the free and home of the brave.  Our change in policy (through a strong loosening of the embargo and its trade restrictions) will lead to an uncontrollable change that not even the mightiest of collective Castro forces can prevent.  If change is what we want, let’s change! Let’s begin to engage.  Engagement is what is needed, not more state laws that penalize the very capital that we seek to one day see transform the island we all love so dearly.

Here’s to hoping the 11th Circuit opines on the inconsistencies of the U.S.-Cuba legislation and finds it futile, thereby removing it all. Oh, wait, the Constitution prevents that too.  Well then maybe the President can do something about it . . . now that can be done!

Guillermo Carlo Artiles is a Cuban American attorney. 

This is how you engage with Cuba

May 22nd, 2013 | Posted by Alex in Hard-line hijinks | People-to-people - (0 Comments)

On their turf. People-to-people. With no agenda but the truth.

Dozens of young bloggers and tweeters gathered to talk about their place in a socialist society whose leaders have referred to the Internet as “a wild colt” to be tamed and make access difficult for all but a few.

Among them were some of the staunchest defenders of Fidel andRaul Castro’s communist system. And there, too, stood what many consider their chief foe, in the guise of an affable, silver-haired stranger clad in sandals, khakis and a Hawaiian shirt.

————————-

When Yohandry Fontana joked that noted dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez would be unhappy with Cuba’s new chief of parliament because he “wasn’t proposed by Washington,” Tribble shot back, “We didn’t propose anyone.”

And he added, “But we do notice that on the same day many Cuban dissidents are arrested. Democracy?”

Best part is how the most hardline of the official bloggers, those who parrot the regime’s line, don’t know what to do with him. Faced with a firm but cordial response, they don’t find a better weapon in their arsenal of insults that to call it “a provocation” or to make convoluted excuses for why they distrust any  approach. The hardliners on both sides are also similar in their distrust for dialogue.

Shakur’s addition to Most Wanted Terrorist List reeks of Cuba Lobby desperation

May 2nd, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Hard-line hijinks | Uncategorized - (4 Comments)

Connect these dots if you will.

February 21st, 2013, The Boston Globe reports:

High-level US diplomats have concluded that Cuba should no longer be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, raising the prospect that Secretary of State John F. Kerry could remove a major obstacle to restoring relations with the Cold War-era foe, government officials said…“There is a pretty clear case . . . that they don’t really meet the standard anymore,” said a senior administration official with direct knowledge regarding US-Cuba policy who was not authorized to speak publicly. “They have neither the wherewithal nor are they doing much.”

Not even 24 hours later, EFE reports:

State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland rejected the suggestion contained in an article published Thursday by The Boston Globe, which said that several top officials and members of Congress had concluded that Cuba should be removed from the list and had conveyed that idea to Secretary of State John Kerry…”I saw that report. Let me say firmly here it is incorrect. This Department has no current plans to remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list,” said Nuland at her daily press conference.

For the next three months, not so much as a peep from the State Department as to whether Cuba would or would not remain on the State Sponsors of Terror list. The updated version of the list was to be published on April 30th, 2013.

In the meantime, Cuba finds itself in a bit of an economic pickle after the death of Chavez and decides it needs to make new friends. Less than 24 hours after two American fugitives kidnapped their children and fled to Cuba, the Cuban government turned them in to US authorities. Then, in the wake of the Boston bombing, Josefina Vidal, the director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s North American Affairs Division, expressed “the most heartfelt condolences of the people and government of Cuba to the people and government of the United States, particularly those directly affected by this tragedy.”…and, said that Cuba “rejects and condemns unequivocally all acts of terrorism, in any place, under any circumstance, and with whatever motivation.” As the AP reported, “one of the requirements for getting off the [state sponsors of terrorism] list is that countries publicly renounce terrorism.”

All while hosting peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC.

At this point, the odds that Cuba will be removed from the list are looking pretty good. I mean, one would really have to grasp at straws to justify its presence on the list anymore, right?

Well, queue the bushels.

On April 25th, a mere five days before publication of the State sponsors of terror list, in a peculiar display of more-than-convenient timing, WashPo reports:

The Justice Department on Thursday announced the indictment of a former State Department employee for allegedly spying on behalf of Cuba, but it is unable to arrest her because she lives in Sweden, a country that does not extradite citizens accused of espionage…A grand jury in Washington indicted Velazquez in 2004 (!), but the charges remained sealed until Thursday.

On April 28th, The Hill reports that, like clockwork:

…four Cuban-Americans in the House are drafting a joint letter to Secretary of State John Kerry laying out why they think the communist island still meets the criteria established by the 1979 sanctions law. And the Senate’s three Cuban-Americans are also vocally opposed to delisting Cuba, which was first added in 1982.

Then yesterday, the news breaks:

A State Department spokesman said Wednesday that Washington has no plans to remove Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism that also includes Iran, Syria and Sudan…The report was supposed to have been released Tuesday, but has been delayed. Officials say it is likely to come out later in May.

Finally today, Fox News reports that the Newark FBI office announced that a whole 40 years after Black Panther Joanne Chesimard killed a cop during a prison escape and fled to Cuba, she is just now being designated a “terrorist”:

Chesimard was serving a life term for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973 when she escaped prison. After hiding out in a New Jersey safe house for several years, Chesimard managed to flee in 1979 to Cuba, where she has been living for decades under the name Assata Shakur. “Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist,” Aaron T. Ford, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Newark division, said at a press conference Thursday. “She absolutely is a threat to America.”

What to make of all this? Will Sweden be added to the terrorism list for harboring Velasquez for 9 years? Are the Black Panthers now considered a domestic terrorist organization? Or have the hardliners taken over the DOJ? Now, now, those are all as ridiculous as Cuba’s continued presence on the list.

My take is that the Administration was getting holy hell from the Sapingo Six led by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Bob Menendez (and their combovered chihuahua Mauricio Claver-Carone) for moving to pull Cuba from the terrorism list. Garcia probably signed on to avoid the “soft on terror” GOP attack ads that would inevitably follow in his battlefield district.

The Obama administration, being the yellabellies they are, and not wanting to look soft on terror after Boston, decided to hold off for now on removing Cuba from the list (hence the delay in publishing the report), unsealing the Velasquez indictment to justify keeping Cuba on the list for the time being.

As for Chesimard, that has Bob Menendez’s name all over it. He probably got the administration to designate her a domestic terrorist to justify keeping Cuba on the terrorism list for years to come.  The administration likely agreed, figuring that if the Cubans really want off the list, they’ll extradite Chesimard to the US.

So now it’s up to the Cuban government to move. If they’re smart, they’ll turn over Chesimard. But something tells me they are just as stubborn and hooked on the status-quo as the Sapingo Six.

I’m with Sapingos.

Conservatives respond to BeyJay trip by slamming Cuban Embargo

April 16th, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Cuba policy | Cuba travel - (0 Comments)

A welcome highlight of the controversy over BeyJay’s trip to Cuba has been watching media conservatives rail against the US embargo on Cuba like never before.

Geraldo Rivera of FOX News wrote an op-ed calling out the absurdity the travel ban:

Cuba is not Iran. It is 90 miles away, and its 11 million are related to our million and more. I’m sure most were as pleased to see Beyoncé and Jay-Z go to Cuba as they were to see the Cuban people. Tourism is not terrorism. It is the beginning of freedom.

Rivera later schooled the gang over at Fox & Friends on how to make friends and influence the Cuban people:

“We’ve made friends with communist China. We do business with them,” [Rivera] added. “Vietnam – we lost 50,000 soldiers and we have normal relations.”

“What if you had a relative rotting in prison there because they spoke up?” asked Brian Kilmeade.

“But the way to loosen them up is to expose them to freedom,” Rivera shot back.

“With Hollywood stars?” asked Gretchen Carlson incredulously.

“Jay-Z and Beyoncé showed the good life to millions of Cubans who will envy America as a result,” asserted Rivera. “It was a harmless trip and the reaction was way over the top.”

Judge Jeanine Pirro, also of FOX News, dedicated the entire opening of her show to questioning the travel ban and embargo, ultimately calling it a “charade”:

Fifty years later this embargo has accomplished nothing. Wouldn’t American influence and American dollars put us in a more positive light as opposed to the image that Castro has created of Americans? In the end it isn’t so much about that celebrity couple who chose to vacation on that pristine island as it is about trying to make new friends in a world where we could certainly use a few more.

Finally, conservative kingmaker George Will declared on ABC’s This Week that the embargo no longer makes sense (watch at 39:00 mark):

The Cuban embargo may have made a lot of sense during the Cold War. The Cold War is over, and it is hard to think of a policy more firmly refuted by events than the policy of the embargo that was supposed to weaken one of the, it turns out, most durable dictators in the world.

All further proof that calling for the lifting of travel and trade restrictions against Cuba is a bi-partisan issue, and that the Cuba Lobby, which likes to slander anti-embargo advocates as liberal useful idiots and Castro apologists, only represents itself, not conservative values nor the Cuban-American community.

Pitbull backs Cuban exile community and Jay-Z, disses out-of-touch politicians

April 16th, 2013 | Posted by William Vidal in Cuba travel | Culture | Hard-line hijinks - (2 Comments)

It must be hard being a Babaloser these days. Their narrow little world is crumbling all around them. First, Obama wins re-election, then we find out 49% of Cuban-Americans voted for him, then Joe Garcia defeats their golden boy David Rivera, then Yoani Sanchez speaks out repeatedly in favor if lifting the Cuban travel ban and embargo (at the Freedom Tower no less!), George Will slams the embargo on ABC’s This Week, and now hometown-boy-made-good, Pitbull pens an “Open Letter” backing Hova.

Humberto “I-have-voices-in-my-head-and-they-all-blog” Fontova doesn’t want to see it though. He compiles a long list of MSM headlines recognizing that the song supports Jay-Z, and then argues that just as when Bruce Springsteen released “Born in the USA”, people now “hear what they want to hear”.

Actually, it’s pretty clear Mr. Worldwide is paying tribute to the exile community and supporting Jay-Z (two concepts that taken together must make Fontova’s brain melt). The only people who get dissed in the song are the Castro regime and their bizarro twins across the Straits, our Cuban-American politicians who threatened fines and possible jail time for the Brooklyn rapper and his bootylicious Mrs.

But hey, read Pit’s lyrics and be the judge:

Don’t agree with the change Castro talk
But it’s hard to understand unless they educate you
Politicians loves to hate you
But then they runaway when it’s time to debate you
Question of the night, would they have mess with Mr. Carter if he was white?

Now if we only knew which politicians have called for federal investigations on Jay-Z as of late?

Humbi, pipo, mas claro ni el agua. Strap on your tin foil hat because the sky’s a fallin’.

DALEEE!