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HAVANA — Fidel Castro has found something to sneeze at in Washington's decision to ease visits by Cuban-Americans to his island: He says more Americans mean more swine flu. The 83-year-old ex-president wrote in state-controlled newspapers on Saturday that many of Cuba's early cases of the virus were visitors from the United States and he used the occasion to take a jab at the U.S. embargo. "We had the strange case where the United States on one hand authorized more trips for a large number of people carrying the virus, and on the other prohibited us from obtaining equipment and...

Fidel Castro has found something to sneeze at in Washington's decision to ease visits by Cuban-Americans to his island: He says more Americans mean more swine flu. The 83-year-old ex-president wrote in state-controlled newspapers on Saturday that many of Cuba's early cases of the virus were visitors from the United States and he used the occasion to take a jab at the U.S. embargo. "We had the strange case where the United States on one hand authorized more trips for a large number of people carrying the virus, and on the other prohibited us from obtaining equipment and medicine to...

US President Barack Obama has welcomed plans for a massive but controversial concert in Havana on Sunday by Miami-based music star Juanes. Obama told US Spanish language network Univision that the concert, which is expected to draw around half a million Cubans, could help improve ties with Cuba. Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had met the Colombian singer before he left for Cuba, with both drawing criticism from Miami's Cuban exile community for a performance they say will legitimize the island's communist regime. "My understanding is that he's a terrific musician. He puts on a very good concert," Obama...

Several months back, I suggested that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was the perfect moderate politician to help bring independent voters back to the Republican Party. Crist had just announced his plans to skip a second term as governor and instead seek the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring Mel Martinez. In that race next year, Crist is being challenged in the GOP primary by a young Cuban-American, the highly conservative former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Marco Rubio. When that column was written, Barack Obama's approval rating was near 70 percent and moderation seemed to be the...

(English-language translation) Radio Martí - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by acclamation the nomination of Cuban theologian Miguel Díaz as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, an appointment that must be ratified by the full Senate. If confirmed, 45-year-old Havana native Díaz would be the first Hispanic U.S. ambassador to the Holy See since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1984. Díaz, the son of a waiter and a typist, was the first member of his family to earn a university degree. He studied at the University of St. Thomas and the University of Notre Dame, working as professor at...

MIAMI – Bernard Leon Barker, one of the five Watergate burglars whose break-in led to America's biggest political scandal, died Friday in suburban Miami. He was 92. The Cuban-born former CIA operative who also participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion died at his home after being taken to the Veteran's Administration Medical Center the night before, said his stepdaughter, Kelly Andrad. He appeared to have died from complications of lung cancer, and he had also suffered from heart problems. Barker was one of five men who broke into the Watergate building in Washington on June 17, 1972. A piece...

Washington D.C., May 28, 2009 / 01:35 am (CNA).- In a surprising move, President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday evening that Miguel H. Diaz, Ph.D., a 45 year old lay Liberation theologian born in Havana (Cuba) is his pick to become the United States Ambassador to the Holy See. An associate professor of theology at St. John's University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, Diaz, a strong Obama supporter and father of four, earned his bachelor’s degree from St. Thomas University in Miami, Fla., and his master’s and doctorate in theology from the University of Notre Dame at...

Professor Miguel H. Diaz, PhD Washington D.C., May 28, 2009 / 01:35 am (CNA).- In a surprising move, President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday evening that Miguel H. Diaz, Ph.D., a 45 year old lay Liberation theologian born in Havana (Cuba) is his pick to become the United States Ambassador to the Holy See.An associate professor of theology at St. John's University and the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota, Diaz, a strong Obama supporter and father of four, earned his bachelor’s degree from St. Thomas University in Miami, Fla., and his master’s and doctorate in theology from the...

A Hispanic Roman Catholic theologian who advised Barack Obama's presidential campaign is the Obama administration's choice to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. The White House announced Wednesday it plans to nominate Miguel H. Diaz, an associate professor of theology at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minn., for the post. Diaz, 45, a Cuban-American, was a member of the Obama campaign's Catholic advisory board. Diaz was among 26 Catholics who signed a statement supporting the nomination of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius...

The consummate politician, a leader reluctant to create more controversy when he already has a cupboard full, President Obama has made only minor changes to the nation's wrong-headed Cuba policy. He declined to go ahead and push Congress to lift the embargo against the small Caribbean nation, even though the policy is an antiquated holdover from the days of the Iron Curtain. That's a bit of a disappointment, given the president's clear-eyed and rational views on other foreign policy issues, from closing the horrendous Guantanamo Bay detention facility to initiating direct talks with Iran.... The best way to influence Cuba...

President Barack Obama on Monday made a landmark gesture to communist Cuba, lifting all curbs on travel and money transfers by Cuban-Americans to the island for the first time in three decades. The White House said the move was intended to encourage an expansion of democratic and political rights in Cuba and called on Havana to respond in kind in order to help ease decades of fierce antipathy between the bitter foes. But the move left a long-standing US trade embargo largely intact, with the White House saying it was up to the Cuban government whether Mr Obama's steps, which...

"For the children," of course. Shepard Smith nailed it: "When you want to make an unpopular announcement, you don't make it yourself, you send-out your press secretary" (while Obama the Brave hides in another room; this guy is gonna take-on pirates? LOL!).

At today’s daily White House briefing, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs will announce that the administration will lift travel, remittance, mail and business restrictions relating to the Communist nation of Cuba. The changes will allow unlimited visits to family members on the island as well as unlimited remittances -- the cash recent immigrants to the U.S. send to relatives back home. President Bush imposed stricter restrictions on both in 2004. "As hard as we search, we can't find anyone who thinks the limitations Bush put on family travel and family remittances in 2004 were a good idea," a senior administration...

President Uniteus at it again http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/02/03/news/nation/doc49880d530dea3950883725.txt

TALLAHASSEE -- Former House Speaker Marco Rubio, of West Miami, is certain to run for the U.S. Senate seat in 2010, following Jeb Bush's decision not to become a candidate. In an interview, Rubio, Florida's first Cuban-American House speaker from 2006-2008, said he'd consider a run "about as seriously as you can consider anything." He'll have a formal announcement in a few weeks, he said, but he's already set up a Web site as a prelude to his campaign and sent out a video to top Republican donors around the state. "Look, U.S. Senate seats are very competitive and very...

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican gunmen have kidnapped a U.S. security consultant who negotiated the release of dozens of kidnap victims in Latin America. Gunmen abducted Felix Batista outside a restaurant last Wednesday in the relatively safe northern industrial city of Saltillo in Coahuila state, Mexican authorities and his employer, security consultancy ASI Global, said on Monday. Batista, a Miami-based Cuban American credited with negotiating the release of victims abducted by Colombian rebels, was snatched after he stepped outside the restaurant, answering a call on his cellular phone, Mexican media said. The U.S. embassy in Mexico City said it was...

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name two attorneys to his administration who helped return Elián González to Cuba, angering some Miami Republicans. Two veterans of the Elián González saga are expected to be named to top posts in Democrat Barack Obama's administration, infuriating some Cuban-American Republicans who haven't forgotten the 6-year-old boy seized in Miami and sent back to the communist regime. The Associated Press is reporting that Obama's top choice for U.S. attorney general is Eric Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the 2000 raid in Miami. Greg Craig, who represented González's father in the custody...

Cuban-born author and anti-Castro activist says Barack Obama won't make any inroads with voters in the Cuban-American community by pushing a wealth redistribution message. That community, he says, is all too familiar with the consequences of such a policy.Humberto Fontova has written several books on the communist regime and believes Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is desperate to make inroads among the Cuban-American community in Florida, 76 percent of which favor John McCain in recent polls.   Obama, according to Fontova, has said he wants to ease restrictions on family-related travel to Cuba and on the amount of money Cuban-Americans...

The rivals for the White House are starting to focus on the key Southern states won by George Bush in 2004, with just 18 days to go before the vote. John McCain, who is trailing in the opinion polls, must hold Virginia, North Carolina and Florida to have a realistic chance of being elected. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is pouring resources into Florida, a state once seen as leaning Republican. Mr McCain will be in Florida on Friday, while Mr Obama arrives on Monday. Senator McCain will hold a rally in Miami, hoping to mobilise his support among Cuban-Americans, while...

The news of Palin has rocked Miami. The pro-republican Cuban-American community here is going crazy! They love her and are energized. Florida will go to the Republicans once again this election cycle.

Posted at http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=22916 hipelayne Presidential Member = >1000 Posts Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Atlanta Posts: 1,358 Poster Rank: #59 A powerful message from someone who's "been there!" I just got this from the Confluence. Does this sound familiar This will be considered off-topic — but it isn’t. I thought I’d share this letter which was sent to the Editor of the Times-Dispatch by a gentlemen who escaped Cuba in the 1960’s. His words come from the experience of believing in someone, without taking the time to know who they really are, and the consequences that followed: Subject: Celebration From...

In search of someone - anyone - on this planet who is not in love with Barack Obama, I am in the banquet hall of a Cuban restaurant in the Miami suburbs, and there are dozens of men and women around me and they are hollering "McCain! McCain! Sí McCain!" A man shouts out in Spanish that I am a political reporter from Canada visiting South Florida. He asks for a show of hands declaring presidential preference. The result: John McCain, about 50; Mr. Obama, two. And the room is just beginning to fill. Soon there will be 250 people...

On the surface, political life in Cuban Miami seems unchanged. Little Havana is still partly a Disney version of a displaced Cuba and partly a genuine community hub, where families who have long since left for suburbia still come for nostalgic weekend lunches. At the Versailles Restaurant, the community newspapers preaching no compromise with Castro are all that are on offer. For almost four decades, the Versailles has been an obligatory stop for Washington politicians courting the Cuban-American community, visits that, as photographs in the restaurant attest, have often involved putting on a white guayabera, the four-pocket dress shirt that...

If there were ever a reason that illustrates why newspapers are dying and the mainstream media isn't trusted by many people, this story from the Babalu blog is a perfect example. Last February, your humble correspondent posted a Newsbusters blog about the studied incuriosity of the MSM over the Che Guevara flag hanging in the office of Barack Obama campaign volunteer, Maria Isabel. This flag was discovered when Houston Fox News 26 reported on the opening of an Obama campaign office as you can see in this video. This caused a big flap at the time but it was reported almost exclusively in the blogosphere as the MSM, with a notable...

Summoning a time of political upheaval in Miami, a great-uncle of Elián González plans Friday to publicly denounce two Barack Obama campaign advisors who helped send the boy back to his father in Cuba eight years ago. One day before the expected Democratic nominee addresses a conference of mayors in Miami, Delfín González will hold a 1 p.m. news conference outside the Little Havana home where Elián lived with relatives for several months in 2000. Earlier this week, CNN reported that Elián, now 14 years old, has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. Obama was an Illinois lawmaker during the 2000...

Not long ago, Florida Republican Chairman Jim Greer pledged that the party and its allies will refrain from injecting race into the presidential contest in the state. "There will be no one connected with the Republican Party of Florida who will utilize any issue related to race, because it's not relevant," Greer told reporters gathered in his Tallahassee office. But that is exactly what a Democratic congressional candidate says the party did last week when it fired out an e-mail press release bearing a doctored photo purportedly showing Fidel Castro endorsing Barack Obama.

MIAMI - Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama yesterday accused President Bush of complicity in the rise of his most fervent nemesis in Latin America through what Obama called a "negligent" US foreign policy that has created a void for anti-American leaders to extend their reach in the region. more stories like this Obama says his Cuba policy is based on 'Libertad' Obama promises Cuba policy shift, attacks McCain Obama courts Cuban-American voters in Florida In Florida, McCain challenges Obama's position on Cuba Obama develops McCain strategy before nomination "No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chávez have stepped into this...

Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday for his criticism of the Cuban government this week, saying McCain had shown why he finished near the bottom of his class at West Point. In his latest newspaper column, Castro also attacked President George W. Bush for his speech on Wednesday announcing that U.S. citizens would be allowed to send cell phones to Cuba. "A deluge of speeches and lies they directed at Cuba," Castro said in a column published in Communist Party newspaper Granma. "How far they are from knowing Cuba and its people."

Decision '08: John McCain's big speech on Latin America Tuesday projects a leadership that will go down well in our southern hemisphere. Instead of focusing on dictators, he aims to shun tyrants and champion people.Zeroing in first on democracy's biggest black hole, McCain in Miami warned the Castro oligarchy that "Cuba is destined to be free" and he didn't intend to stand passively nor buttress the Castro regime on its last legs by inviting them to tea in the White House. Winds of change are coming. "I will provide more material assistance and moral support to the courageous human rights...

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has drawn criticism from some Cuban Americans who disagree with his policy on negotiating with U.S. enemies. The Washington Times reported Sunday that the Illinois senator will likely have to defend his policy this week when he meets with the Cuban American National Foundation, in his first campaign stop in Florida in nine months. Obama has said that if elected president he would hold direct talks with hostile governments, including Cuba's communist leaders. In addition to holding talks with Cuban leaders including President Raul Castro, Obama has said if elected he would relax restrictions on...

Cuban emigres living out rags-to-riches fairytale with colt Gayego Dr. Jose Prieto, left, and Carlos Juelle pose with Gayego shortly after they purchased him at the 2006 Keeneland September yearling sale. Carlos A. Juelle Mike Brunker Horse racing editor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Few, if any, have traveled a more improbable and circuitous route to the Kentucky Derby than Carlos Juelle and Jose Prieto. The Cuban émigrés journey to the owners’ suite at Churchill Downs traces back nearly four decades to hard-labor camps and a maximum security prison run by Fidel Castro’s communist regime. Juelle, a 68-year-old semi-retired business executive...

Carmen Peláez is a liberal with a deep laugh and a great sense of the absurd. All of those qualities are tested when she encounters fellow New Yorkers who still admire Fidel Castro. Ms. Peláez, a Cuban-American actress, was born in this country and raised in Miami. She came to New York in 1993 to study acting. In the mid-’90s, she traveled to Cuba to explore the world of her great-aunt, Amelia Peláez, a noted painter who died in 1968. All those experiences pulse through “Rum & Coke,” a one-woman show in which she channels relatives on both sides of...

Mitt Romney donned a guayabera for a Sweetwater rally, trading in his standard blue-suit, white-shirt ensemble for the traditional Cuban attire. Romney told the crowd of roughly 150 at the Jorge Mas Canosa youth center that he ''would never give money to Fidel Castro'' -- prompting a swell of cheers. But Adela Rodriguez, 70, a retired bookkeeper who left Cuba 39 years ago, said she's a Romney supporter for other reasons. She said he seemed like a ''moral person,'' but more importantly, she said: ``I like his agenda for the economy.'' Romney has seized on the economy as his strong...

SWEETWATER, Fla.—A buzz went through the press corps when Mitt Romney showed up at a Cuban-American community center here on the outskirts of Miami this morning. “What is he wearing?” one reporter asked. Could it really be? Yup. The normally buttoned down Mr. Romney, whose uniform on the trail is invariably a starched white shirt, navy blue suit and tie, occasionally interrupted by a button-down without a tie, or sweater with khakis, was wearing a guayabera. Guayaberas, of course, are linen shirts popular in Latin America, traditional in Cuba with four pockets and two vertical pleats that legend has...

Peace activists in pink dresses and tiaras demanded the arrest of anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles Saturday, but aborted plans for a demonstration in Little Havana after Carriles supporters rushed their vehicle.The six activists, of the Codepink anti-war group, had planned to speak to reporters outside the landmark Versailles restaurant to publicize their campaign against Carriles-- a former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. However they were met by some 200 irate Cuban-Americans who consider Carriles a champion of freedom. Some ran at the activists' truck as they arrived, tearing off...

To the (large) extent that the Armenian-American lobby ginned up support for a pointless and destructive resolution condemning sins of the Ottoman Empire, it advanced its own causes at the expense of larger American interests. ... To the (huge and obvious) extent that the Cuban-American lobby has muscled the United States into its small-minded and punitive embargo of Castro's Cuba these last 45 years, it has advanced its own causes at the expense of larger American interests. ... - To the (ongoing) extent that AIPAC -- the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby" -- is...

WASHINGTON - President Bush, ever pushing for a Cuba without Fidel Castro, wants allies around the world to offer money and political support so the island can be ready to transform itself. It is Bush's vision for Cuban regime change: providing help on the outside, prodding change on the inside. Seizing on Castro's fading health as a rare opening, Bush was to ask other nations Wednesday to help Cuba become a free society. In remarks prepared for delivery at the State Department — his first standalone address on Cuba in four years — Bush looks to the day when Castro...

Trying to jump-start his stalled trade agenda, President Bush pleaded with lawmakers on Friday to pass free trade pacts with four nations, and warned against protectionism taking root in America. In Miami, a city known as the "gateway to the Americas," Bush urged Congress to approve free trade agreements with Peru, Panama and Colombia in Latin America plus another with South Korea. The deals face uphill battles given five consecutive years of record U.S. trade deficits that critics say played a major role in the loss of more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since Bush took office in 2001. Bush...

Hero. Rebel. Revolutionary. These are words one often hears in association with Ernesto Che Guevara. But they are not words you will often hear in Miami where many people see Che Guevara as a brutal guerrilla who brought Cuba nothing but misery with his communist ideals. One of those anti-Che voices in Miami belongs to Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban-born former CIA agent who was part of the mission of CIA operatives and Bolivian army forces that captured and killed Che Guevara in October 1967. Forty years on, how does he feel about the role he played in ending the life...

AP) The father of a 5-year-old Cuban girl at the center of an international custody battle did not abandon or neglect her, so he should get her back, a judge ruled Thursday. Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen said she would not immediately return the girl to her father, Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, who wants to take her back to Cuba. The girl went into foster care after her mother brought her to the U.S. in 2005 and then attempted suicide days before Christmas. She has been living with foster parents in Miami for the past 18 months and they want...

Fred Thompson blasted Fidel Castro today as he campaigned in a morning Miami, Florida event. Here is a good synopsis of his morning stop: Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson ripped Cuban leader Fidel Castro and liberals who praise the Communist country's health care system during a morning campaign swing through Little Havana. Thompson, on the second day of a three-day bus tour of Florida, appeared on a Spanish-language Radio Mambi morning show, then visited the Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho. Both are familiar stops for any candidate hoping to woo conservative Cuban-American voters. "Let there be no mistake about it....

vote Campaiging in Florida today, Fred Thompson vowed to continue the embargo on Cuba as President, and even said he would have his Attorney General look into a possible indictment of Castro's brother Raul for the shooting down of two "Brothers to the Rescue" planes in 1996: "Thompson, appearing at the Little Havana eatery in front of a mostly Cuban-American crowd, also said he would maintain the embargo on Cuba if he were elected president." ''Castro is a dictator; he's the head of state-sponsored terrorism............

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson blamed Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday for the publicity surrounding his remark suggesting Cuban immigrants are bringing suitcase bombs to the United States. When asked by Florida's WTVJ about the perception in the Cuban-American community about his comments, Thompson replied, "I think that was a Hillary Clinton news release that she put out or a statement that she made trying to capitalize on something when she knew better." During a trip to South Carolina in June, Thompson was talking about illegal immigration from Cuba and elsewhere and said, "I don't imagine they're coming...

For nearly a decade, Republican presidential candidates have counted on Florida's Cuban-American community to win the state and, with it, the presidency. This year's hopefuls are again making the rounds in Little Havana and on Miami's Spanish-language radio, mixing criticism of Fidel Castro's Cuban regime with scathing comments about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But this once fail-safe plan has become more risky as Florida's increasingly diverse Hispanic community no longer guarantees a monolithic vote. Of the state's estimated 3 million Hispanics, Cubans represent a third. Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, more traditionally Democratic voters, make up another third, and Central and...

CANCUN, Mexico — The body of a Cuban-American who was under investigation in a migrant smuggling case was found riddled with bullets along a road outside this Caribbean resort, authorities said Tuesday. Luis Lazaro Lara Morejon, who was wearing only white Bermuda shorts, was found handcuffed and blindfolded with duct tape late Monday night. He had been shot at least 10 times, said Didier Vazquez, the director of the judicial police in Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located. Vazquez said Mexican police were investigating whether Lara was part of a Cuban-American group that smuggled Cubans from southern Mexico to...

Cuba's late Marxist revolutionary, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, is experiencing something of a revival these days. His fiery-eyed visage and rock-star good looks, immortalized in an iconic snapshot by photographer Alberto Korda in 1961, seem to epitomize the youthful idealism of revolution, rebellion and free-spiritedness.

I was at the swearing ceremony and it was very moving. This guy was smiling like he just won the lottery. He was happy and wanted to share it with the world. As you can see on the video, he was very proud and shared his thought in spanish.

Florida: Jose Temprana, a 105-year-old man of Cuban birth, has gained his citizenship in the United States. He arrived on a humanitarian visa aged 93 after spending 30 years in prison for smuggling weapons for a failed US-backed insurrection attempt. Temprana has been married twice and currently has a girlfriend. He was a lobster fisherman/sponge diver by trade and fathered eight children. Locally he is known as 'El Nino' (The Boy) because of his spirit and vitality. "I feel different, satisfied, very happy. It was worth the wait. I've wanted ... it since I was 8 or 10 years old,"...

The woman has no political instincts. * Clinton slams GOP rival's Cuba remark LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Taking a swipe at a potential GOP presidential rival, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday criticized Fred Thompson for suggesting illegal Cuban immigrants pose a terrorist threat "I was appalled when one of the people running for or about to run for the Republican nomination talked about Cuban refugees as potential terrorists," Clinton told Hispanic elected officials. "Apparently he doesn't have a lot of experience in Florida or anywhere else, and doesn't know a lot of Cuban-Americans." * Of course you're appalled,...

MIAMI (AP) -- A 105-year-old native of Cuba has finally had his wish fulfilled. He's become a U.S. citizen. Jose Temprana celebrated by sipping champagne with friends at the Hispanic Community Center in Miami Saturday. Temprana was born in September 1901. He worked as a sponge diver and lobster fisherman. He had eight children with his first wife, who died giving birth to the youngest. His second wife died in 2002. In 1964, he was imprisoned in Cuba for smuggling weapons from the United States into the island for an insurrection against Fidel Castro. He wasn't released until he was...