Free Republic

If you want to understand why President Obama was reelected despite a largely unsuccessful presidency and almost unprecedentedly high and continuous unemployment, just look at the Cuban-American vote. In fact, if you want to understand America today — specifically, why it is in decline — just look at the Cuban-American vote. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, “The president captured 48% of the Cuban-American vote in Florida — a record high for a Democrat.” Democratic presidential nominees went from 25 percent of the Cuban-American vote in 2000, to 29 percent in 2004, to 35 percent in 2008, to 48...

Call it the Cuban Conundrum—a problem for pollsters who find Florida Hispanics are far more Republican than anywhere else in the nation.It’s on full display in the latest Florida International University/Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald poll of likely Hispanic Florida voters showing President Barack Obama clings to a narrow 51-47 percent lead over Republican Mitt Romney.But nationwide,the poll shows,Obama leads by a far bigger margin among likely Hispanic voters.The difference in Florida: Cuban voters. Without them, the FIU poll shows,Obama would handily win likely Florida Hispanic voters 65-32 percent.Not only are Cubans reliable Republican voters—they’re about 70 percent of Miami-Dade’s registered...

“My Hispanic can beat up your Hispanic!” pretty much captured the convention kick-offs. “Republicans chose Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Cuban-American, to introduce Mitt Romney,” reported the AP. “Democrats picked Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio, a Mexican American, as keynote speaker. Both are considered rising stars.” Ah! But what fun the Republicans missed. Given the era’s political correctness, politics in the U.S. get pretty boring nowadays. No present-day politician or their slick consultants could possibly publicize what’s forthcoming in this article. So please stick around, because I belong to neither profession. Most immigrants arrive in America poor (especially...

SNIPPET: "They are believed to have supported "terrorist groups that operate in the Algerian area of the Maghreb, specifically al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM), a Spanish ministry statement claimed. The group, aged 36 to 49, is also suspected of linking up with Islamist support groups in Italy, France, and Switzerland."

The owner of the Dallas Mavericks got caught up in the hype surrounding the Facebook IPO launch a month ago and snapped up 150,000 of the social media giant's shares, but the excitement was short-lived. Today, the gregarious self-made billionaire announced that he sold all of his shares after admitting that he took a hit in the market. ‘My thesis was wrong,' Cuban said in a CNBC interview. ‘I thought we’d get a quick bounce just with some excitement about the stock. I was wrong, and when you’re wrong you don’t wait, you just get out. I took a beating...

Operational Strategic Nuclear Warheads: USA = 3,451 USSR = 497 Number of Operational ICBMs: USA = 203 USSR = 36 Number of Operational Strategic Bombers: USA = 1,306 USSR = 138

When it comes to Cuba, President Obama can do little right in the eyes of exilio politicians. When he eased travel restrictions to the island, for example, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen accused him of undermining democracy on the island. Now she's slamming Obama for his decision to order U.S. inspectors to check a deep-water oil rig that is on its way to Cuba. ... "A state sponsor of terrorism [is] poised to achieve a tremendous economic boon by entering the oil business and endangering U.S. waters to boot," she said. "It is deeply disappointing that the Obama administration appears content to...

SNIPPET: "The Interior Ministry says Spanish police have arrested a Cuban man suspected of belonging to al-Qaida. A ministry statement says the man was detained Monday on the Mediterranean Island of Mallorca."

HAVANA (Reuters) – A Cuban cigar roller broke his own record on Tuesday by rolling the world's longest cigar, a monster smoke that stretched 268 feet 4 inches (81.8 metres), or most of the length of a football field. Resting on tables, it sprawled through El Morro, an old Spanish fort overlooking Havana Bay, where Cuba is holding its annual International Tourism Fair. The cigar, once it is officially accepted by Guinness World Records in London, will eclipse the previous record cigar of 148 feet 9 inches (45.38 metres), both rolled by Jose Castelar Cairo, better known as "Cueto. Cueto,...

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba's Communist Party approved landmark economic reforms on Monday and voted for new leaders in a key party congress to chart Cuba's future, state-run media reported. The Caribbean island's highest political body was to select new first and second secretaries, its Central Committee and powerful Political Bureau, .. results were not immediately disclosed. The reforms represent the biggest changes to Cuba's Soviet-style economy in decades and are aimed at securing the future of socialism in one of the world's last communist states. The congress' approval had been widely expected because some of the reforms are already in...

Rats and diseases infested Cuban prison cells so badly that some inmates tried to kill themselves and other did themselves harm, according to freed political prisoners who spoke Thursday in Spain. Those who spoke were among 11 political prisoners released this week and flown to Spain to start new lives. At a press conference in Madrid, they painted a squalid picture of the prison conditions they had endured. "The hygiene and health situations in prisons throughout the island of Cuba are not terrible, they are worse than terrible," freed dissident Julio Cesar Galvez said. "We had to live with rats...

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro made his first known public appearance since falling ill four years ago in a visit this week to a Havana scientific facility, a blog reported on Saturday. Photographs taken with a cell phone and posted with the pro-government blog showed a smiling Castro, 83, chatting with people said to have gathered around him as he was leaving the National Center of Scientific Investigations. ... The blogger, Rosa C. Baez, wrote that Castro was spotted making a "surprise visit" to the center on Wednesday and stopped to greet and "throw kisses" to the...

company run by former Dallas Mavericks owner Ross Perot Jr. filed suit Monday against the club and Mark Cuban's company that holds majority ownership in it, alleging that it's insolvent or verging on insolvency. In the 13-page petition filed in a state district court in Dallas, Hillwood Investment Properties III Ltd. asked that a judge place Dallas Basketball Ltd., the team's business management, in receivership and order an independent audit of its operations. Hillwood also is seeking actual and punitive damages.

Victoria Jackson interviews a Cuban emigre on Tax Day, April 15th, 2010 in Washington, DC

Seven Cuban doctors and a nurse sued Cuba, Venezuela and the state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) for alleged conspiracy to force them to work in conditions of "modern slaves" in order to pay off the Cuban debt with the Venezuelan government for oil supply. The defendants "intentionally and arbitrarily" held the health staff in "debt servitude" and the staff became "economic slaves" and "political advocates," according to the complaint filed in the United States, Efe reported.

Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) will announce his retirement this afternoon at a press conference at Florida International University, according to two Republican sources familiar with his decision.

Cuban refugees are dominating arrests in Florida's indoor marijuana trade in what investigators call a nearly punishment-free crime. ....young Cubans throughout the state are turning to the lucrative business of raising ultra-potent pot worth up to $4,500 a pound, without fear of deportation or lengthy prison sentences. Probation is a common sentence for anyone convicted in state court of running a growhouse, drug agents say. And, unlike other foreign-born felons, U.S. policy prevents the deportation of Cubans. South Florida groups identified by law enforcement as Cuban Drug Trafficking Organizations control hundreds of growhouses that have sprung up from Miami to...

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...

HAVANA (AFP) – Cuban Vice President Juan Almeida Bosque, a revolutionary commander who fought alongside Fidel Castro to bring down a pro-American dictatorship, has died. He was 82. An official communique issued through state media said Almeida, the number three official in the Americas' only communist regime, died late Friday from cardiac arrest. Almeida was one of just three top Cuban leaders to hold the title of revolutionary commander. As a black man in racially diverse Cuba, Almeida was an important visual symbol of a break with the past, particularly in 1950s Cuba, when racism and discrimination were common. His...

The 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba has been shaken by the revelation that drilling for oil and natural gas is about to take place less than 50 miles off the U.S. coast - in Cuban waters. No one knows for sure just how much oil lies off the northwest coast of Cuba, but the consensus is that it's sizable. The U.S. Geological Survey initially came up with an estimate in 2004 of between 5 billion barrels and 10 billion barrels. But Cuba's state oil company, Cubapetroleo, recently said the undersea geology was "very similar" to Mexico's giant Cantarell oil field...