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“Remarking on the soaring tensions between Ukraine and Russia, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla voiced support for Moscow and echoed his voice against NATO’s expansion eastward.” (This was way back on Feb. 20, by the way.) Most of us recall the Obama administration's lies and treachery regarding Benghazi. But how many of you know about the Obama administration's lies and treachery against the American families of the Americans ambushed and murdered on the orders of Raul Castro this week in 1996?....... Thought so...Well, please read on: You see, amigos: This week 26 years ago three U.S. citizens and...

President Donald Trump is set to announce a rollback of former President Barack Obama’s policies toward Cuba, The Daily Caller has learned.Two sources told TheDC that the development is due to the behind-the-scenes efforts of Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and Republican Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.This information coming from an anti-embargo group, which spoke on the condition of anonymity, was confirmed Sunday by John Kavulich of the nonpartisan U.S. – Cuba Trade and Economic Council. “The Trump Administration has been ‘ready’ since February 2017 to announce changes, but issues unrelated to Cuba have intervened,”...

As the radical left organizes obstructions of airport terminals to protest President Donald Trump’s executive order enacting new security measures for travelers visiting from turbulent countries, few appear equally outraged that his predecessor, Barack Obama, issued a similar directive specifically targeting Cubans. During his last week in office, President Obama repealed a long-standing executive order known as “Wet Foot/Dry Foot,” which allowed all Cubans legally touching U.S. soil to stay here illegally. The objective of the executive order was to give sanctuary to Cubans risking their lives on makeshift vessels trying to sail to the United States and escape the...

I couldn’t have imagined that President Obama could do any more harm to the Cuban people before he left office, but I was wrong. With only a week left in his presidency he announced that the long-standing policy of accepting Cubans that flee the Communist island of Cuba by sea — the policy known as “wet feet, dry feet” — would change. That policy has been in place since President Clinton declared it so after the horrific debacle of the Clinton administration’s handling of 9-year-old Elian Gonzalez. After the forced deportation of Elian Gonzalez by armed U.S. federal agents under...

President Barack Obama’s overtures to the Castro dictatorship in Cuba may have won praises in some places in the United States, but within the Cuban-American community in Florida it was deeply resented.And it may have cost Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton any chance of winning Florida’s 29 electoral votes.Democrats tend to win more votes among Americans of Hispanic ancestry in comparison to the Republicans. In fact, Democrats and even many Republicans are constantly lecturing the GOP that they need to “reach out” to American Hispanics. But whatever the merits for that argument, one group that the Democrats continue to have trouble...

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By Jonas Sundgaard Havana’s roads received a new layer of asphalt along the beautiful Prado Boulevard and the colorful buildings in Old Havana were shining brighter than ever prior to Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba. The decay and poverty in the city, however, is too prevalent and pervasive to be hidden by a quick make-over in honor of the first visit by a US president in 88 years. Cuba offers exotic beaches, magnificently colored American vintage cars from the 1950’s, joyous salsa rhythms and iconic cigars. But this is largely a façade, behind which lies a very different reality. During...

Thanks largely to Obama’s recent “engagement” Stalinist Cuba has quickly become the absolute COOLEST place on earth. Close on the heels of Katy Perry, The Rolling Stones and the Obama family itself-- this week Karl Lagerfeld showcased his Chanel “cruise line” with a fashion-show extravaganza where Havana’s Prado Street served as the catwalk/runway for the world’s coolest models while Gisele Bundchen, Tilda Swinton and Vin Diesel monkeyshined for the paparazzi on the sidelines.Not to be outdone, the Kardashians just arrived in Havana to shoot their next show. Attaining such status for coolness among the world’s coolest people is not easy....

President Obama and his family will arrive Sunday in Cuba for an historic three-day visit filled with symbolism, but with few expectations that the president’s legacy-building will improve human rights for Cubans under the repressive communist regime of the Castro brothers. Air Force One will land at Jose Marti International Airport near Havana late Sunday afternoon, making Mr. Obama the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on Cuban soil since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. After a stop at the U.S. Embassy, the Obamas are to visit the Cathedral in Old Havana to meet Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop who...

---SNIP-- In the years prior, President Jimmy Carter had, like Obama is now, attempted diplomacy with Cuba. Detecting an opportunity, he agreed to accept 3,500 of these refugees. But this figure was quickly surpassed when Miami’s Cuban ex-pats began flooding the port with boats to pick up their families. Rather than discouraging this technically-illegal act, Carter welcomed it, and from April to October of 1980, 125,000 Cubans came to America

Let this be a lesson to all the naysayers who claimed Obama’s “engagement” or rapprochement with the Castro-Family-Crime-Syndicate (euphemized as “Cuba” by the media and State Dept.) was pointless and idiotic —who claimed that the Castros would not budge from any of their policies. Your humble and hard-working servant himself must now eat crow. Exactly a year ago he went on John Stossell’s FoxBusiness show to hysterically berate Stossell and a CATO Institute scholar. These dogmatic libertarians claimed Obama’s policy was very wise and sound—and would shrewdly and magically beget modifications in the Castro regime’s modus-operandi. OK, so there’s nothing...

Move over Che: Obama's the new poster in town Havana (AFP) - A poster of US President Barack Obama popped up in central Havana Thursday in a revolutionary change to the portraits of Che Guevara and other communist leaders plastered around Cuba. Cubans are used to living under the gaze of billboards, paintings and other depictions of Fidel Castro and his comrades in arms Che and Camilo Cienfuegos, as well as 19th-century independence leader Jose Marti. But three days before Obama arrives in Havana for the first visit of a serving US president in nine decades, a restaurant entrepreneur has...

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez says the country will do away with a 10 percent penalty on dollars exchanged at banks and money-exchange centers in Cuba if new U.S. measures allowing Cuba access to the international banking system prove to work. The measure would make it much easier for U.S. visitors to Cuba to change dollars during their trip. …

President Obama’s outreach to communist-ruled Cuba risks “legitimizing the deeply entrenched Cuban regime,” Cuban human rights and opposition groups warned Wednesday, days before Obama is scheduled to become the first sitting president to visit the island nation in almost 90 years. “We would never imagine that the democratic world would legitimize the Castros,” the Forum for Rights and Freedoms and the Resistance Assembly wrote in a letter to Obama. “These individuals have destroyed the well-being of our nation. From firing squads and political assassinations to political imprisonment, thousands of Cubans inside and outside the island have had their lives taken...

....Obama held a meeting Wednesday with 16 Cuban-Americans, including music producer Emilio Estefan.... ....Estefan asked the president to meet with Cuban dissidents and create a plan of action for a more democratic Cuba. "It doesn't make sense if you go and nothing happens in the end, I think this is good that Cuban people will decide and I think that in order to decide they will have to have free elections," Estefan said.

The New York Times reported this morning that, before his trip on March 25, President Obama will ease further restrictions on American travel to Cuba. Individuals will now be able to travel to Cuba without having to purchase expensive packages sold by approved tourist agencies.No longer will they have to join a group studying Cuban music, photography, politics, etc. They will only have to promise to engage in “people to people” exchanges. Read broadly, it means you can go to Cuba as long as you engage in serious conversations with Cubans you meet.This surely does not include chats with dissidents.Obama...

President Obama believes Congress will lift the embargo against Cuba — under the next president. Obama made the admission ahead of a historic visit to the communist island nation, intended to cement his new policy of openness toward the United States’s former Cold War foe. “My strong prediction is that sometime in the next president's administration, whether they are a Democrat or a Republican, that the embargo in fact will be removed,” he said in an interview with CNN en Español that aired Monday. The president has relied on his executive powers to establish new trade and travel links with...

HAVANA — The Obama administration on Tuesday loosened rules on travel to Cuba and the Cuban government’s use of the dollar, removing obstacles to closer ties between the two countries five days before President Barack Obama makes a historic trip to Havana. The administration announced Tuesday that Americans can now take “people-to-people” trips to Cuba on their own instead of on expensive group tours. That means any American can legally go to Cuba as long as they fill out a form asserting that their trip was for educational purposes instead of tourism. The measure is expected to help fill demand...

President Obama gave a pep talk to U.S. diplomats Monday, urging them to “finish strong” as his administration enters its final months, and defending his diplomatic “breakthroughs” with Iran and Cuba. “There are those who criticize our commitment to diplomacy, for investing so much effort in trying to resolve conflicts that seem intractable,” Mr. Obama said during a visit to the State Department in Washington. “Here’s the truth: conflicts and wars do not end on their own. Breakthroughs don’t just happen. Agreements don’t write themselves. It takes diplomacy, being willing to sit down with others.” Citing the Iranian nuclear deal,...

The Reverend Al Sharpton called for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step down because of his poor management of race and policing in his city since the release last month of a video showing a white Chicago police officer firing 16 shots into a black teenager and subsequent officer violence. Mr. Emanuel is vacationing in Cuba, while demonstrators are circulating petitions for his resignation, and protesters blocked traffic on the city’s famed shopping district on Michigan Avenue on Christmas Eve chanting “Rahms got to go in 2016!” “You talk about a crisis on steroids,” Mr. Sharpton said Monday on MSNBC’s...