CUBAN AMERICANS SECTION - Havana Journal > Cuban American Politics
Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Megan Williams, the Director/Producer of Tell Me Cuba sent me the DVD and asked me to have a look at it. We had a brief phone conversation but we did not talk about politics too much so I wasn’t sure which way the film would lean. Of course I was assuming there would be a “leaning” since the subject matter is Cuba. So, I began to watch the DVD with an open mind looking for the leaning.
The documentary leads off with a brief overview of the history of…
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By Saul Landau | Progreso Weekly
(This conversation took place on April 1, 2009. Our film crew received Justice Department approval to talk with “the prisoner,” with a prison official in the room. Before his 1998 arrest, Gerardo directed the operations of the other Cuban State Security agents who infiltrated violent groups in the Miami area for the purposes of stopping them from carrying out terrorist attacks on tourist sites in Cuba. We took complete and…
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Damien Cave | Miami Herald
A 14-page proposal from the Cuban American National Foundation lays out what the document calls “a break from the past” that would “chart a new direction for U.S.-Cuba policy.”
It is the basis of an ongoing discussion with the Obama administration, White House and foundation officials said, and it amounts to the group’s most significant rejection of a national approach to Cuba that it helped shape and that has been defined by hostility and limited contact with the island.
Foundation officials described it as an effort to direct attention away from Fidel and Raúl Castro…
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Patrick Doherty | The Havana Note
Senator Menendez, the Dike has Burst
There he was, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, holding forth from the well of the Senate making his Alamo stand against some very innocuous provisions to allow Cuban-American family members travel to Cuba and for American agricultural producers to carry out the business they already do with Cuba more efficiently during a time of economic recession.
Most analysts I speak with say this was a picture of a man trying to put his finger in a dike,…
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University of Miami Cuba Transition Project email
The Honorable Carlos Gutiérrez, former Secretary of Commerce under the George W. Bush administration, has been named a non-resident scholar at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS).
Gutierrez will be based in Washington, D.C. and from there will help ICCAS’ Cuba Business Roundtable (CBR), an ongoing program that recruits businesses who are interested in information and professional advice on Cuba to be ready to do business in a post-embargo, post-Castro Cuba. He will also serve as keynote speaker in ICCAS’ Cuba Transition Project seminars in Eastern Europe, Latin…
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AP
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON and MARK WANGRIN | Associated Press Writers
U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who has struggled to boost public support because of his close ties to President George W. Bush, announced Tuesday he will not seek a second term in 2010, saying he wants to spend more time with his family.
The Republican pushed an immigration reform bill that was unpopular with many in his party, and his seat was widely seen as vulnerable in two years. However, Martinez rejected suggestions he faced difficult re-election prospects in a state won last month…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Read this article then read my comments at the bottom.
By Carol J. Williams | Los Angeles Times
Bernardo Benes is plotting to reprise his role as broker of the one humanitarian breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations in the 50 years since Fidel Castro’s revolution came to power.
Benes, who negotiated the 1978 release of 3,600 political prisoners and the right for Cuban exiles to visit family on the communist island, plans a freelance mission to his homeland to sound out President Raul Castro on what the Havana regime wants from President-elect Barack Obama.
“I…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Email received from Joe Garcia campaign:
With just 48 hours until the polls close, this is our final push, and we know we’re in the position to win this race.
But it is all going to come down to our final push.
We need your help to get out the vote:
1) First and foremost, plan to join us at our FINAL Canvass on Monday evening. Our entire campaign team will be joined by a crowd of volunteers and supporters that have come in from all over the country to help win what is being…
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He didn’t say it outright, but did dip his toe in those waters, according to this morning’s pool report.
Speaking to Miami-based Radio Mambi, a force in the exile community, McCain said Fidel Castro has made his “preferences known in the campaign and had some very unkind things to say about me.”
To laughter, McCain said: “My feelings are hurt.”
Joe Lieberman, also in the studio, added:“You know, there’s an old expression, ‘you can judge a man by the enemies he’s made.”
McCain also got in a plug for the Diaz-Balart brothers, the two Cuban-American GOP congressman…
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By Kim Ghattas | BBC News, Miami
In the Maximo Gomez domino park, on the corner of 8th Street and 14th Avenue in Miami, time appears to have slowed down to the pace of endless domino games.
Old men shuffle their tiles and play for hours, day after day, a routine that punctuates a life in exile for Cuban immigrants still waiting for change back home.
As they smoke their cigars, they talk of the embargo on Cuba and their plans to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
There is unanimous support here for the Republican Party, which has…
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