Op-ed:

Raul Castro's Puppet-On-A-String

By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots on American Political Radio

“His election is not by chance. It was planned by us in group, and we decided that he’s the best option in our opinion.”

- Raul Castro on Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermudez becoming Cuba's next president

For six decades they ruled with an iron first...first Fidel and then Raul...the infamous Castro brothers. Turning the once beautiful island nation of Cuba into a third world nightmare of sorts, this once thriving nation saw its economy and infrastructure crumbling under the 'bearded one's' communist rule.

And the Cuban people hoped that economically things would at least get a bit better upon Fidel's death, but those hopes were short lived for Raul was cut from the same cloth as his brother but just in a slightly less in-your-face mode.

So as a new Cuban president now takes over the reigns of power know this transition is not quite what it seems on the surface for Raul's hand-picked successor is nothing but a Castro puppet-on-a-string. How so...with Raul Castro remaining in place as First Secretary of Cuba's Communist Party...the most powerful position of all...and with Raúl’s son Col. Alejandro Castro Espín heading intelligence and domestic security for the army and interior ministry...Raul's actual control shows no real signs of abating especially with his now being freed from the day-to-day responsibilities of a figurehead presidency. And this means the agrarian revolution started by his brother Fidel...a revolution fueled ever forward via pages taken from the communist manifesto by a man who in reality was not unlike a Mafia don...that revolution remains in place...at least for the time being anyway.

And so with orchestration courtesy of all-powerful Raul Castro...who was also the founder and head of the Revolutionary Cuban Armed Forces...party loyalist Migel Díaz-Canel...who came up through the ranks...became the sole candidate nominated to head Cuba’s Council of State...the presidency if you will. And then in a vote of 603 to 1...remember there are no direct 'by the people' presidential elections in Cuba just the nominating of municipal representatives who in turn pick the president...the 57-year old Diaz-Canel...Cuba's then national assembly vice-president...became what was being portrayed as a consensus builder when in reality he is anything but.

So now as the reigns of power shift somewhat to a younger but still decidedly communist leaning generation, know that this generation born after the revolution is still a generation indoctrinated into the ideals and tenets of communism, socialism and most decidedly Castroism. This translates into Diaz-Canel's presidential “anointing” being but a dog and pony show for all the world to see while the Cuban people's sorry lot in life will see no change for the better as this so-called election was but a regurgitation of socialistic continuances of everything that was.

And while last year then President Raul Castro himself spoke that economic reforms were soon to come, even going so far as to say that, “We haven’t renounced the pursuit of private-sector work”...know those words were also just for show for now President Miguel Diaz-Canal has said that, “There is no room for those who aspire to a capitalist restoration...We will defend the revolution and continue to perfect socialism.” In other words, it's more of the same old, same old, for what the Cuban people have to look forward to is as per Diaz-Canal's own words, a “continuity to the Cuban revolution,” and that if any changes are to be made that they will always be in the “context of existing Cuban socialism.”

So why did Raul Castro bother to relinquish the presidency when Miguel Diaz-Canel is Raul Castro...just minus 30 or so years of age?

Before that question can be answered certain facts must be known, first of which is that during his two terms as president, Raul did bring a certain amount of “cautious reform” to Cuba including the introduction of term limits (two 5-year terms total), in fact he himself will step down as the head of Cuba's Communist Party in 2021. And Raul together with then President Obama (calling him that still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth) opened diplomatic but somewhat shaky relations with the United States in 2014; he lifted some restrictions on commerce and travel for Cuban citizens; and he also initiated the legalization of the sale of real estate. 

But even those reforms in no way went nearly far enough in regards to actual economic reform as new licenses for up and coming small private businesses...businesses like restaurants, taxi companies, and operations aimed at the “big money” tourism industry...while still leaving the Cuban economy’s most important economic sectors like energy, mining, telecommunications, medical services, and rum-and cigar-production in the hands of the state...those licenses have not only slowed down but have for all intents and purposes stopped with Cuba's rank and file Communist Party officials claiming that they need to make sure these new private businesses are paying taxes and obeying the law. 

Translation: private business owners and young so-called “upstart entrepreneurs” were making more money than said rank and file Fidel loyal officials were. Jealousy and envy are powerful weapons in the hands of those who wish for a slowing down or a halting of economic reform for to them economic reform signals a flaw if not a failure of the revolution's socialistic collective agenda.

And failure of the revolution remains most decidedly not an option.

So where will this once minister of higher education and former Raul Castro bodyguard's hand fall in all of this, for if now President Miguel Diaz-Canel delays for too long the public's call for much needed and much demanded economic reform, a dangerous precedent will be set with both generalized economic collapse and general discontent hanging over the horizon. And if he decides that economic reform is not to be addressed, Díaz-Canel's painting of himself as both an adherent to the economic policies of Raul Castro and as a consensus builder...while at the same time disavowing the entirety of capitalism...will all be for nought. 

“There’s no space here for a transition that ignores or destroys the legacy of so many years of struggle,” now President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in his acceptance address.

But Diaz-Canel...who Raul says will now hold power until 2031...knows that if he plays his cards right a loosening on private enterprise might still be in Cuba's future without compromising Fidel's dream of a socialist utopia. And to accomplish this he must put in place a version of what's known as “market socialism”...the very system China now uses to bolster its once dragging economy.

But will “market socialism”...which is a predominant state-owned sector within an open market economy...as in a government controlled compromise between socialist planning and free enterprise...a blending of the two is you will...will that be enough to herald in the true economic reform the Cuban people both need and want? It seems only time and Diaz-Canel's promise of reform...albeit cautious reform on his timetable and willingness alone... will tell, for no matter if “market socialism” does become the answer to Cuba's economic woes it will still see businesses being publicly owned but with production and consumption being guided by market forces instead of by government planning, but sadly those businesses would still not be owned by the Cuban people themselves. 
 

But at least that's a start and reform does indeed have to start somewhere for otherwise the now Cuban stagnant economy, along with most cities and towns in a total state of disrepair, will continue on its downward spiral. Remember, the revolution under Fidel's guidance saw Cuba’s economic model being dependent upon having a patron...a sponsor...and while the Soviet Union picked up the country’s tab, if you will, Russia for the most part no longer does. And the economic help gotten from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, both before and after his death and Venezuela's own political and economic collapse, is now almost nonexistent, leaving Cuba mired in debt and despair it seems it will never see its way out of. 

Now as for the answer to the question of why Raul Castro really stepped down. Claiming that by his stepping down he now looks forward to having more time to travel the country...I ask Raul travel to do exactly what...and all I can come up with is he will continue to push forward the revolution's now failing agenda in a last ditch attempt to ward off what might be yet a new Cuban revolution...one to bring Cuba into the 21st century and finally leave the 1950's behind.

But sadly for now the Cuban people's suffering continues on for not much relief is expected for the island nation, for while some Cuban's hoped that Raúl’s stepping down as president might be their long awaited relief from a revolution proven to have gone sour...all sadly remains status quo for now. And while there might be a new presidential figurehead in town running Cuba's daily operations...Miguel Diaz-Canel neither stirs the Cuban people's passions nor is he expected to bring much change for Raul Castro still controls the army and the party, and the reality is that he who controls those controls Cuba. It cannot be said any plainer than that.

Copyright @ 2018 Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / All Rights Reserved.
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To read more on my personal take on the situation in Cuba...and why I see it as I do...please go to my blog The Patriot Factor to read my article A Personal Glimpse Into Castro’s Hell.

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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Craig Andresen's blog The National Patriot to read his latest article The Evolution of Monumental Idiocy

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RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE!

Today, Tuesday, April 24th from 7 to 9pm EST on American Political Radio, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss Raul Castro's New Puppet-On-A-String; The Evolution of Monumental Idiocy; and important news of the day. 
 
Hope you can tune in at: http://listen.samcloud.com/w/73891/American-Political-Radio#history

Op-ed:

A Personal Glimpse Into Castro’s Hell

By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots on American Political Radio bit.ly/2cpXuRd

“Socialismo o muerte." 

- Fidel Castro’s favorite rallying cry

He was no George Washington nor was he Jose Marti...he was a brutal murderous dictator and nothing more...he was Fidel Castro and he is dead...finally and thankfully.

The man who led the 26th of July Movement...a rag-tag group of rebels who morphed into an army of sorts...the man who overthrew Cuba’s once duly-elected president turned dictator Fulgencio Batista...died at 10:29pm last Friday night and the Cuban community in Miami took to the streets in rightful long overdue celebration.

Fidel Castro...the embracer of Soviet inspired communism was the very man who stood strong against ten U.S. presidents from Kennedy to Obama...that man was no mere revolutionary for revolutionary inspired revolutions have a beginning and an end, but for the Cubans in Miami that revolution remains ongoing...that is until next Sunday, December 3rd, when Castro’s ashes will be interned at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba, the very site of the beginning of the Cuban Revolution when in 1953 Castro and about 150 other revolutionaries attacked the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Batista’s government.

And the rest is but well-worn notes in history from Castro’s arrest, to his exile in Mexico, to his January 8, 1959 triumphant ride into Havana as Batista’s regime finally fell to his rebels...forever changing what was once called the ‘Gem of the Caribbean’ into a hell-hole of despair ruled with a 50+-year Mafia-like stranglehold on Cuba’s people.

But this article is not a reflection on Fidel Castro’s rule per se but is a telling of truths that must be told as it is the story of but one family’s journey through a nightmare that only now can finally come to an end. And that family is my family...my family through marriage.

My name as you my readers know is Diane Sori but technically according to Spanish tradition my married name is Diane Sori-Marin...wife of Manuel Luis Sori-Marin...daughter-in-law of the late Dr. Manuel Sori-Marin and Olga Sori-Barretto...and would be niece, again by marriage, of the late Humberto Sori-Marin. And if that name sounds familiar it's because Humberto Sori-Marin was once Castro’s Minister of Agriculture and Judge Advocate General where in this position he oversaw the sentencing of many to death...that is until he tuned on Castro and became a double-agent for President John F. Kennedy...handpicked by the C.I.A. along with other members of the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD) to help lead the Bay of Pigs invasion from Cuba’s side...an invasion to overthrow the overthrower...an invasion I believe to assassinate Fidel Castro.

And Humberto Sori-Marin was one of the men arrested upon landing at Fundora Point, Celimar, near Havana, with American-made arms and explosives in their possession...arrested along with other anti-Castro operatives by Cuban state security (G-2) officers after having been caught off guard during a then routine but unannounced G-2 search of neighborhood houses. Executed on Castro’s direct orders immediately after the failed invasion...Humberto was executed in a way to send a message to all who dared oppose Castro...executed before the eyes of his horrified family...shot first in the knees to be photographed falling to the ground as if in pleading for his life only to be then so riddled with bullets that even his own younger brother Mariano could barely identify his body at the morgue.

But why did Humberto Sori-Marin turn against the man he once pledged his life and loyalty to...why did a man who was one of Castro’s ‘right hands’ during the revolution do such a thing especially when he was rewarded with positions of power by the dictator who later became known to the newest generation of Cubans as ‘Papa?’ 

The answer to that is twofold. First, Humberto Sori-Marin was a smart and learned man, a lawyer by profession, who saw that once Castro was in power he started to initiate radical economic reforms that were nothing but a harbinger of a communist state in the making and not the democracy that was promised the Cuban people. And second, Humberto was plagued by guilt...a simple yet most powerful of reasons...for when he was the chief judge in the then ongoing war crimes trials in Havana, it was he who presided over the February 18, 1959 televised sham of a trial of Major Jesús Sosa-Blanco...a colonel in the Cuban army under Batista...and it was he who personally pronounced Sosa-Blanco’s death sentence...a death sentence he ordered carried out within mere hours...a death sentence that haunted him to his dying day. See actual news wheel footage of the televised trial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvLfOXCg7BY

And it was this guilt that had Humberto formulating plans to overthrow the monster he helped to create...even if those plans meant assassinating his onetime friend. And those plans...the Cuba initiated involvement in the Bay of Pigs operation...are now believed to be the first attempt on Fidel Castro’s life for a small group could not really be expected to overthrow the regime now in place.

And these whys are what lead Humberto to resign both his minister and judiciary positions, after which he joined Manuel Artime-Buesa’s anti-communist movement while at the same time even more blood starting to flow in Cuba’s streets as one by one members and supporters of Batista’s former government were rounded up to stand before ‘summary courts’... courts in name only where those accused were found guilty without the benefit of a trial...where those accused were found guilty and sentenced to death...and where at least 582 of those accused were shot dead in the span of just two years by firing squads...shot dead just like my would-be uncle by marriage Humberto Sori-Marin was on April 20, 1961

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But Umberto’s death was not the only heartache my future family by marriage would be forced to endure at the hands of brutal dictator Fidel Castro.

My future father-in-law, Dr. Manuel Sori-Marin, older brother of the executed Humberto, was never a supporter neither of Fidel Castro nor of his revolution. A member of the anti-Castro Camaguey ‘urban cadres,’ my father-in-law, a cardio/thoracic surgeon and the medical director of the Hospital La Colonia Espanola as well as a free clinic for Camaguey’s poor, had a warrant out for his arrest as well. And why...while not in the history books and for good reason, the fact is that Humberto Sori-Marin was actually arrested twice by Castro for conspiring against the state...for conspiring against him. The second time was obviously when Humberto was executed, but the first time was when he was placed under simple house arrest in Havana as a favor of sorts by Castro. In a show of weakness of emotions over logic, Castro thought this was a gesture of friendship and camaraderie for Humberto’s having fought alongside him during the revolution. 

But sensing what his fate was eventually to be as well as being plagued by guilt for both the blood on his hands and for his part in Cuba’s now unfolding nightmare, Humberto feigned illness and was surprisingly allowed to send for his personal physician who just happened to be his brother Manuel. Together they made good their escape through a hole in the wall made when they took out an air conditioning unit and under cover of night made their way to the Embassy of San Salvador. There Humberto and my future father-in-law hid out until April 1961, when they were smuggled to San Salvadoria and eventually made their way to Miami where Humberto met with C.I.A. operatives and where his fate was sealed...and where my future father-in-law aided by wealthy Chicago businessman Sam Orenstein, whose daughter’s life he had saved while the Orenstein’s were vacationing in Cuba, Papi (as I came to affectionately call him) stayed but one step ahead of his own arrest and execution.

Now forced by circumstances to leave behind his patients, his practice, and most importantly his young family...my husband-to-be was but a mere child at this time and was the younger of two siblings...my father-in-law, a wealthy man in his own right, lost everything to Fidel Castro in his rush to escape. Coming to the U.S. penniless and alone, Papi aided by Orenstein made his way to Chicago where he was forced to take a job as an orderly in Oak Forrest Hospital in Illinois as he...a once leading cardio/thoracic surgeon in Cuba...had to take the American medical boards in English in order to hold the same positions and titles he once held in Cuba.

And while Papi was allowed by the embassy to have his wife Olga...my future mother-in-law...visit him once or twice while under their protection...said visits were to make clear that both he and his family must plan to escape immediately not just to save their own lives but because under Fidel’s dictatorship sons became property of the state destined for servitude to the regime... something he never wanted nor would allow for his son Manuel... my future husband. And with plans made to time their escape with the first wave of refugees leaving the island...the wave encompassing the ‘Peter Pan’ flights...my now mother-in-law, my now husband Manuel and his older sister Susana boarded a standing room only flight to Miami after being personally searched, monies and Cuban passports taken away, and left with literally nothing to begin their new life in America. Thankfully after landing in Miami, and again with the help of Sam Orenstein, they too made it to Chicago to be reunited with Papi after a month’s separation.

But while Papi’s family eventually made their way to the U.S. leaving behind everything in exchange for freedom, my mother-in-law was forced to leave forever not only her family but to leave behind a life style that only the truly wealthy of Cuba knew...to leave it all yet over time to become the strong woman she still is today. One of two daughters of privilege...Olga Sori-Barreto was the younger daughter of Luis and Aljimira Barreto...a wealthy cattle baron and former railroad supervisor for the American railroad of Cuba. Now forced by fate, a grieving Luis Barreto had to tell his beloved daughter in no uncertain terms that she must leave Cuba, her home, behind...that she must leave not only for her sake and her future but because he too feared the consequences for her young son if they stayed. 

Staying behind by choice...a choice made that saw many Cuban families being torn apart for the first time...was her older sister and her husband who when offered the chance to leave on the same flight chose instead to stay to care for their now ailing and frail parents...to stay to bear witness to all their father had worked a lifetime for being taken away by a murdering dictator and his regime. And when Olga and her children set foot upon that plane...the plane’s doors sealed shut a once happy past and was the last time Olga Sori-Barreto would ever see her beloved father and mother until years later when she was allowed to briefly return to the country that had been her home by the Castro government (under a compassionate visa) for their funerals.

So now here we are many decades later, with this family I spoke of now being my family, and while my mother-in-law’s late sister and her husband were eventually allowed to come to the U.S. for brief visits, these visits were decades after the fact as the sister Olga left behind as a young beautiful woman was now old and sick, beaten down and stripped of a future by the actions of a man in whose death I too rejoice in. And while my beloved Papi did become an American licensed Doctor of Pulmonology and a highly respected thoracic surgeon, his proudest achievement was his and his family’s becoming American citizens...Republicans by choice as Papi knew well the dangers of supposed benign Democratic liberalism morphing into full blown totalitarianism. 

How I wish Papi had lived to see the man who executed his brother and who tore his family apart have his ashes not interred in a peaceful and hauntingly beautiful cemetery but sprinkled over the agonizing fires of hell as payback for all the heartache and despair he caused while living what amounted to a hypocritical coward’s life at the expense of his fellow Cuban people...for only hypocritical cowards do the unspeakable things Fidel Castro did all while living a life of luxury...the very thing he claimed to so despise.

And while history sometimes has a way of absolving the unspeakable acts of both madmen and brutal dictators know that in the case of Fidel Castro, America’s Cuban community at large and many families personally touched by Castro’s hand of death will not allow history to be kind to this most brutal of men...and might I add rightfully so.

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RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE!

Today, Tuesday, November 29th, from 7 to 9pm EST on American Political Radio, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori share Diane's personal glimpse into Cuba's past, talk about Craig's take on Jill Strein's nonsensical recalls, and discuss the stabbings on the campus of OSU.

Hope you can tune in at: bit.ly/2cpXuRd

Op-ed: 
Concessions to Tyranny Obama-Style
By: Diane Sori

“Barack Obama is the worst negotiator that we've had as president since at least Jimmy Carter, and maybe in the history of this country.”
- Florida Senator Marco Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants who came to the U.S. in 1956

Yesterday...in yet another tactic to divert and deflect our attention away from his unilateral authorization of 9,000 unapproved Syrian muslims being let into our country over the next few months...'We the People' got yet another lump of coal in our Christmas stocking from the traitor- in-the White House as Barack HUSSEIN Obama...coming but a day after Congress recessed for the Christmas holiday...has now taken it upon himself through executive action to LIFT the embargo against Cuba...a country on the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

With his announcing that the U.S. will work towards 'normalizing' and restoring full diplomatic relations with the island nation just 90 miles off Florida's coast...including opening an embassy in Havana and easing restrictions on remittances, travel, commerce and banking, including allowing the use debit cards in Cuba as well as raise the level of remittances allowed to be sent to Cuban nationals to $2,000 every three months from the current limit of $500. And this means Obama is allowing even more American dollars to be sent out of this country going to non-Americans.

So once again and true to form Obama is violating standing U.S. laws by dealing directly with the communist/marxist country of Fidel and Raul Castro...dealing directly with a country 'in bed' with our enemies. And all this comes as Cuba releases American contractor Alan Gross...after his having served five years most recently in a Cuban prison hospital ward...for so-called 'humanitarian' reasons but the reality is this release is for anything but.

NOT done for humanitarian reasons for the reality is this release was done to mask yet another paying of ransom of sorts to an enemy...just like Obama did with that now come back to haunt '5- for-1' trade of five high-ranking Taliban terrorists for one low-level army deserter named Bowe Bergdahl. However this time, to secure Gross' release Obama actually used his clemency power to commute the sentences of the last three of the five Red Avispa members...allowing the three to be simultaneously released as Gross was released. This 3-for-1swap...of those convicted of spying on anti-Castro groups here in America (including Miami-based 'Brothers to the Rescue') with one of those being released convicted of 'conspiracy to murder' when the Cuban military shot down two of the 'Brothers to the Rescue' civilian planes...was ill-conceived from the start as Gross was NO spy but this deal of Obama's does make it seem as if he indeed was.

And so another prisoner swap has been completed where America once again comes out on the short end for this was an Obama-planned and executed swap...and you just know that cannot be good.

Alan Gross...who worked for Development Alternatives, out of Bethesda, Md., was a man who had traveled to more than 50 countries as an international development worker. Arrested in 2009 and falsely convicted in 2011 of spying for bringing standard satellite telephone equipment that was capable of cloaking internet connections into Cuba, the Castro government claimed this equipment was going to be used in a U.S.-led plot to overthrow said government. Gross was finally released yesterday after 18 months of secret 'back channel' talks at the highest levels of both governments...talks that were largely hosted by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis.

Hmmm...Obama willingly talks with a communist government...after all he is a communist himself...but NO talks were conducted with our 'supposed' friend Mexico for the release of Sgt. Andrew Tahmoorissi...just saying.

And now the U.S. and Cuba...once the 'Jewel of the Caribbean' but sadly now a cesspool of poverty of Castro's own doing...are going to immediately begin talks to restore full diplomatic relations to end the five-decades-old embargo against Cuba. Saying he will send 'major' amounts of money to the Cuban people...people who will now go from having the Cuban government supporting them...'them' as in Cuba's version of our welfare gimme-gimme sponges...to a by-proxy form of our American government and our taxpayer dollars supporting them. And all the Cubans who came here LEGALLY...including in what is the still legal and in effect 'Wet foot-Dry foot policy... just got a slap in the face from the traitor-in-chief as did any and all others who came here LEGALLY.

And what happens to all the Cubans who lost everything when Castro took power...the Cubans who were forced to flee the island in fear of their lives...when Castro 'stole' for himself and his minions all the property, monies, and tangible assets from those who opposed him...from those whose family members he murdered. And do NOT think for a minute that Castro didn't have people murdered for Castro had a direct member of my husband's family murdered...executed actually...as in lined up before a firing squad in front of his family, shot in the knees to force him into a hoped for 'begging for his life position' (he NEVER caved), and then had countless bullets fired into his body until dead. His crime...my husband's uncle was resistance member Humberto Sori-Marin, the Cuban Agricultural Minister who was actually working for and in tandem with JFK on the 'Pay of Pigs' invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro.

And now Sen. Rubio said he will (rightfully) try to use his upcoming key roll on the Foreign Relations subcommittee in an attempt to block Obama's "dangerous and desperate attempt to burnish his legacy at the Cuban people’s expense." And the incoming Foreign Relations chairman, Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, said this panel will be “closely examining” the implications of the administration’s new Cuba policy.

Also, former Florida governor and possible 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush recently told a gathering of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, "I would argue that instead of lifting the embargo we should consider strengthening it again to put pressure on the Cuban regime." Obviously, Obama did NOT give a damn about Bush's thoughts nor did he even heed RINO extraordinaire John Boehner words that "Relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until the Cuban people enjoy freedom – and not one second sooner."

So the bottom line in Obama's announcement is that he is now rewarding a dictator who continues to oppress his people, thus setting in place an extremely dangerous precedent that could actually put American lives in danger. And how so...simply because this trade and Obama's now official recognition of the continuing Castro regime begs America's enemies to kidnap and use Americans overseas, both those serving in our military and in the private sector, as bargaining chips to get what they want. And with America's enemies being Obama's friends they will surely get whatever they damn well please.

“This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people,” so said Sen. Rubio. And how right he is as this NOTHING but a politically opportunistic move that Obama has now set in motion will do NOTHING but allow Fidel's hand-picked successor...his younger brother Raul Castro...to remain in power unchecked for Castro has the upper hand as Obama vindicates the very actions of yet another dictator against his own people.

"Todos somos Americanos" Obama said which translates into "We are all Americans." But know these words are a direct slap in the face to the Cuban people for the Cuban people are NOT Americans just as Americans are NOT Cubans...just as Barack HUSSEIN Obama is NOT an American himself...need I say more.