President Obama has legitimized a terrorist thug months after largest shipment of weapons was intercepted on its way to NKorea #Cuba
— Mario Diaz-Balart (@MarioDB) December 20, 2014
Obama to possibly invite Raul Castro for WH visit –who’s next? Assad, Kim Jong-un, Leader of Boko Haram, Leader of Hamas? #AppeaserInChief
— Mario Diaz-Balart (@MarioDB) December 18, 2014
I’ve been enjoying the sweet taste of the tears of the South Florida congressional delegation, Mario Diaz-Balart being a prime example. This Dan Drezner piece goes through the reasons why recognizing Cuba is a big nothing, but for people like the Diaz-Balarts and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, it’s everything. The big, bad bogeyman who they’ve dedicated their lives to hating and fearing is now out from under the bed, and it just ain’t that scary. They know as well as we do that the net impact for the average schmuck living in the United States is going to be a few different cigars in the shops and another warm vacation destination in the Winter. But for them, the days of privileged victimhood are over. Being a Cuban is now like being every other kind of Latino, and Baby Jesus knows that ain’t pretty, especially if you’re a Republican.
MattF
I agree that suddenly being ‘like every other kind of Latino’ must sting. ‘Way overdue.
Botsplainer
White Supremacy in Latin America is a very real thing. Cuba has had multiple public awareness campaigns to crush it, and it is still a problem.
tokyokie
Mario DB? As in Mario Douchebag?
chopper
your tears taste so delicious!
Mustang Bobby
There was a protest march in Little Havana yesterday against Obama and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. According to the local TV coverage, the average age of the marchers was about 70. Los historicos are the only ones who still harbor the visceral and personal hate against the Castro brothers.
To the Diaz-Balarts, it’s a family matter: Fidel Castro’s first wife was Mario’s aunt.
As for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Marco Rubio, the specter of irrelevancy now looms large.
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: Marco finally has the attention of all the Sunday shows to bloviate his views.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Cry, you whiny, self-absorbed git. Moan as your political power drains away, leached away by one you thought was beneath you. Enjoy irrelevance.
Mustang Bobby
@JPL: He’s the poor man’s John McCain now.
Comrade Dread
Love how ignorant that guy’s statements are.
We’ve been ‘friendly’ with the Saudis, the Communist Chinese government, Saddam, the Contras, the El Salvadoran death squads, Pinochet, and a laundry list of other petty tyrants and terrorists who abused and/or murdered their populace. Hell, we’re ‘friendly’ with Vietnam now and 40 years ago we were shooting at each other.
So unless you’re going to completely cut the US off from the world, get used to having normalized relations with lots of assholes.
WereBear
@Comrade Dread: Geez, that’s what diplomacy IS.
Mustang Bobby
@Comrade Dread: Not only that, the Republicans from Reagan on down supported the apartheid regime in South Africa and said that an embargo against them would be counter-productive.
Elizabelle
The twelve days of whingeing continues.
GOP tears in the Sunshine State.
In the Big Apple, Patrick Lynch, trying to incite a blue riot against the mayor on the backs of two dead policemen. Making their senseless deaths that much more ugly.
It would be great to turn out for the next “black lives matter” wearing buttons with Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and slain officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.
All dead before their time.
Lavocat
You had me at …
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: Didn’t Lindsey Graham say Elizabeth Warren was?
Botsplainer
From back when Republicans had a faction that consisted of fewer fetus-savers and Jesus humpers.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/03/politics/03REAG.html
biff diggerence
Calle Ocho, Miami: 21 October, 1962 (the Missile Crisis)
“The bars were filled in little Havana and Cuban exiles were dancing in the streets. I was enraged. All of my country might yet be destroyed, everyone I knew maimed or dead, but the exiles were happy because they had a chance to get back to Cuba; I remembered thinking that they were an unbelievably selfish and self-centered tribe, still furious at the loss of the wealth they might still have been amassing in Cuba, although now they were making money in Miami; middle class Cubans, I decided, had a prodigiously large sense of the rights due to themselves, and little sense of the rights due to others. They would gamble all of my great nation against Fidel Castro’s beard.”
Norman Mailer
Harlot’s Ghost
raven
A buddy of mine is married to a Colombian woman and is pretty well-versed in Latin American affairs. He made the point to me that if all these Cubans who are freaking out had stayed and fought against “the revolution” they would have won. Instead they beat feet for greener pastures.
leeleeFL
@Elizabelle: All lives matter. The deaths if these two officers are so awful, and using them the way Lynch is should be a crime. I fear we will see things get worse, damnit.
raven
MTP is having some asshole from Beitbart on!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: It cracks me up to hear about the evil Castro brothers and all the terrible things they have done to their small island nation with nary a mention of the things Batiste and company were doing before the revolution and heaven forbid any accounting of how all the riches that were “lost” by the Cuban refugees were obtained in the first place.
leeleeFL
@raven: This! So many exiles want the US to fight for their country. It has always pissed me off@biff diggerence: Norman was a smart guy.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s a great moment in the Godfather after the dude blows himself up with a frag and Pacino ruminates on what it took to do that.
Tommy
@raven: One of my best clients is a Cuban American. I talk a lot with my clients. I might enjoy talking to him more than anybody else. I picked up the phone and called him on this topic. I kind of knew what he’d say, this is a topic we’ve talked about, but he is happy.So happy.
rikyrah
I hope POTUS visits Cuba WITH THE ENTIRE FIRST FAMILY
raven
@Tommy: Yea, it’s mostly them fossil’s that are freaking out.
Frankensteinbeck
@Botsplainer:
Racists who think they’re in charge can afford to be magnanimous to their lessers. Clint Eastwood had a major reputation for treating black actors well and giving them bigger roles than other directors. Then a black man was actually put in charge, and he devolved into arguing with an empty chair.
EDIT – @Mustang Bobby:
And as JPL points out in the comment after yours, the news media talking heads. That they care very much should tell us a lot about them.
Tommy
@raven: Yeah. The guy I referenced is in south Flordia. Pretty hardcore Cuban American. He tends to think what I think. We agree on most things.
Iowa Old Lady
Speaking of evil regimes the US must hate forever, Mr IOL just reported to me that on Fox News, Mike Rogers said Sony is an American company. I thought it was Japanese.
raven
@Iowa Old Lady: Who wonna da second world wah??
Elizabelle
@Frankensteinbeck:
Do we know that Clint Eastwood has a problem with President Obama because of his race? I don’t know that’s the case at all.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: We are the world.
raven
@Elizabelle: It would be irresponsible. . .
kc
Won’t Cubans continue to have special status as refugees, tho?
kc
@Elizabelle:
I really doubt that it is. Eastwood has always been conservative.
WereBear
@Frankensteinbeck: I understand Clint Eastwood makes a fetish of self-reliance. His parents visited and paid him, to the dime, for the long-distance calls they made. He thought that was great.
I thought: What ungenerous expectations. And he was obviously raised that way.
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady: I guess there’s room to fudge the nationality of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. The original entity was the American movie studio Columbia Pictures, which iconic Japanese corporation, Sony Corp purchased at the end of the 1980s from The Coca-Cola Co.
raven
@WereBear: My dad always gave me a hard time for calling him collect from Sydney when I was on R&R!
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: That’s my take too. I think Eastwood’s main fault is failing to recognize what his party morphed into around him. Not surprising, really. He’s a rich dude in California.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
ETA: It seems to me that calling Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc a Japanese company on the basis of its current ownership is rather like calling legendary British sports car maker Lotus a Malaysian company.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Watch the video. If you need any more proof that Eastwood has gone totally off the rails and is lecturing what he thinks blacks are like rather than any actual disagreement with Obama, there’s the moment where he reproves, in a gentle, fatherly way, his imaginary Obama for swearing at him angrily. Yes, it’s racism.
Mustang Bobby
I learned long ago — 1971, to be exact, when I came to Miami for my first tour as a student at UM — not to refer to Cubans as “Latino” or “Hispanic.” They are Cuban, madre de Dios, and that makes them special.
Now that they don’t have Miami all to themselves and have to share it with folks from other Spanish-speaking countries, the older ones are much more self-absorbed and isolating. The younger ones are better at mixing in, but Dog forbid that you tell the parents or grandparents you’re dating someone who’s not Cuban. Hell, I dated a guy who was loath to tell his parents he was going out with me; not because that would out him as gay, but because I am an Anglo.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: Do you mean the empty chair video? I saw it. I thought it was painfully lame but it seems like a stretch to call it racist, IMO.
Just Some Fuckhead
I thought that was the chef that rides the scooter and wears the pink shoes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Has anyone seen Jose Diaz-Balart, first cousin of Jose and Lincoln IIRC, on this topic? My sense is he’s a little less invested in the family business of revenge fantasy.
And at one point weren’t there three Diaz-Balarts in Congress? Mario, Lincoln, and another cousin, maybe with a different last name?
@Mustang Bobby: What I’ve heard/read is that a certain kind of Cuban think of themselves as pure Spanish, even aristocratic Spanish.
Mike in NC
All I want for Christmas is for Bob Schieffer to have a stroke on live TV, preferably while massaging John McCain’s genitalia.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: I saw it as racist because it was incredibly condescending. There was a lot of “how dare you” going on that rang some bells for me.
RepubAnon
I sympathize with the politicians whose brand was to exploit anti-Castro feelings in the expatriate Cuban community. Without a symbolic enemy to hate, they’ll have to campaign on the issues. Que malo.
WereBear
@Mike in NC: I’m drawing a blank on how to wrap that. Maybe just stick-on bows?
Omnes Omnibus
@WereBear: Gift bag and Clorox wipes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: Best thing about that was the way Team Willard played it: A surprise mystery guest! A game changer! Who would it be? David Petraeus? Nancy Reagan? The cryogenically preserved head of Kitty Carlisle I mean Ronald Reagan? The really funny thing is people thought the first two were “game changers”
Iowa Old Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, and then they mismanaged the timing so the chair-scolding was what people saw tuning in for Romney’s nomination.
Good times.
tybee
@Mike in NC:
TV worth watching
shelley
Good Lord, don’t you remember the massive freak-out over Elián González?
M31
The people most hurt by this will be Canadians, who will have to find some other place to vacation without Americans swarming everywhere.
Thanks, Obama.
GregB
Whenever the shit gets stirred the floaters rise to the top.
Hence the return of Rudy Giuliani of the famous Giuliani Time, now bobbing up to the top of the septic tank to emit the noxious statement that President Obama told everyone to hate police officers.
What a filthy human.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Staple gun.
rikyrah
Saturday, December 20, 2014
The Foul Fix In Ferguson, Con’t
Posted by Zandar
So it turns out that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch knew his witnesses were lying, and had them testify in the Darren Wilson grand jury proceeding anyway.
McCulloch: Well, early on, I decided that anyone who claimed to have witnessed anything was going to be presented to the grand jury.
And I knew that no matter how I handled it, there would be criticism of it. So if I didn’t put those witnesses on, then we’d be discussing now why I didn’t put those witnesses on. Even though their statements were not accurate.
So my determination was to put everybody on and let the grand jurors assess their credibility, which they did. This grand jury poured their hearts and souls into this. It was a very emotional few months for them. It took a lot of them.
I wanted to put everything on there.
I thought it was much more important to present everything and everybody, and some that, yes, clearly were not telling the truth. No question about it.
Bonus points: He can’t charge these witnesses with false statements because he just admitted publicly that he knew they were lying and if he does, he perjures himself in the process.
McCulloch: That issue has been raised, and it’s a legitimate issue. But, in the situation again, in the manner in which we did it, we’re not going to file perjury charges against anyone.
There were people who came in and, yes, absolutely lied under oath.Some lied to the FBI. Even though they’re not under oath, that’s another potential offense — a federal offense.
So yes, this is obscene. The witnesses lied to the grand jury, and because of that, the jury proceedings are bogus at best and an outright attempt to swing the jury’s verdict under false pretenses at worst.
But Darren Wilson continues to go free.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-foul-fix-in-ferguson-cont.html
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB: ‘A small man in search of a balcony” — Jimmy Breslin.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear: and @Betty Cracker:
Try it this way: Assume he’s smart enough not to say anything undeniably racist, like ‘you black people are lazy.’ Most racists are smart enough not to do that, right? Think about how a racist would give that presentation if he’s smart enough to avoid those few key undeniable phrases or epithets. I submit to you that it would be exactly like the Clint Eastwood chair speech, down to the insanity underlying giving the speech at all. Patronizing tone as if he’s addressing a little boy, bizarrely unrealistic concept of what Obama is like, suggestions that Obama needs to listen to his betters, generally lecturing on being responsible, and specific references to Obama being angry and profane.
If you rule out anything that doesn’t include specific, overt, no-plausible-deniability racist statements like the word ‘nigger’, you’re going to let one Hell of a lot of racism go scott free. I think the last five years have demonstrated that America really is a cesspool of racism that’s been hiding under that plausible deniability.
WereBear
@Ruckus: LOL!
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Try the veal and don’t forget to tip the waitstaff.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear: and @Betty Cracker:
Oh, and for the icing on that cake, the audience of racists at it up. He lectured the stereotype of a black man in their heads, and they loved it and had no idea they were watching something deranged until the next day when they heard everyone laughing.
brettvk
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s the vibe I got, watching it at the time. An intensely unpleasant experience.
some guy
Litte Debbie Wasserman-Schultz must be so proud that friends Mario and Ileana are all in a snit. Good job, Little Debbie, the candidates you supported are doing so well!
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck: @Frankensteinbeck:
Agreed with this.
There are many shades of racism. Overt, white dunce cap wearing, rope (or now gun) carrying asshats for whom hating blacks is an all consuming passion. Guarded, will use the n word but only when in the presence of like minded, more stylishly dressed and might join a lynch mob but would never lead one. Better educated, knows that being overtly racist seldom pays off but in the presence of like minded will show their colors. Exposed, no that’s not what it means, Clint Eastwood is a prime example, know they have to try to hide their feelings otherwise it might cost them money or fame. Closet, they would never say anything that could be taken as racist but it’s in the back of their minds frequently that black people are less than human.
And of course people don’t always fit or stay in one box and I’m sure this is not a full listing. Some can actually learn to be better humans but it usually takes a catalyst to make that happen.
Heliopause
“Obama to possibly invite Raul Castro for WH visit –who’s next? Assad, Kim Jong-un, Leader of Boko Haram, Leader of Hamas?”
Yes, that would be great. Leaving aside the moral component, unless you have a credible plan to snuff them out of existence then the logical alternative is to make peace with them.
Gosh, it’s almost as if they don’t think these things through.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: While working the Mariel Boatlift in Key West, I ran into many Cuban guys I knew who worked at the airlines in Miami. To a man, it was “I didn’t realize there were so many blacks in Cuba.” That’s the trouble being part of the 1%—their total isolation from the rest of the population.
PurpleGirl
@Mustang Bobby:
Hell, I dated a guy who was loath to tell his parents he was going out with me; not because that would out him as gay, but because I am an Anglo.
In college I dated a Cuban guy. The first time I went with a group of guys to a science fiction convention his parents wondered what type of girl spends all day with a group of guys. But as the day went on and I wasn’t home yet, my mother called his mother. Everything became a-okay because my mother spoke Spanish. The next question was how did a NY woman learn such clean, Castillian Spanish (my mother’s first husband was from Equador). But it was now a-okay as I said for Manuel and I to be dating and spending all day together.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Definitely yes. My college boyfriend sometimes spoke of the family wedding dress which came with the first bride from Spain some 300-odd years ago. Every bride marrying into the family had word the dress during that time. And they did get it out Cuban when they left.
SRW1
Phantom pain. The influence limb of Senor Diaz-Balart has been amputated.
kindness
So…who is it that is going to propose changing the current immigration law wrt Cubans vs. every other undocumented immigrant. You know, the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy? The if a Cuban is found at sea they get shipped back but if they step one foot on dry land they automatically get papers and are legal.
Of course Cubans should be treated like every other group in my mind. The salty tears of the (older) S. Florida Cuban community are delicious because it’s so easy to see they see their special immigration status ending but don’t want to say it. For myself, I figure in 2 voting cycles (4 years) it’ll be southern Republicans who start wanting to boot them too. Especially if the demographic starts voting Democratic, and with the events of late by Obama, I can hardly not see that too.
Delicious salty tears. Now there is some tasty schedenfreude. I almost feel guilty.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Ruckus:
It’s also the degree of equality. Eastwood seems fine dealing with black people as subordinates (actors being subordinate to the director on the set) or even as equals. It’s having one as his superior — someone who’s running the whole damn place — that triggers that underlying racism that all of us Americans have.
A similar trigger would probably be having to deal with a black studio head, but that won’t happen until sometime after the first gay woman president is elected.
schrodinger's cat
@kindness: Who can change that? Does it require an act of Congress or does it fall in preview of Presidential authority. Cubans are indeed more equal than other would be immigrants to this country. Do Obama’s current actions change any of that?
El Cid
Once again the victim and perpetrator of international terrorism is reversed — Cubans have been the victims of US-based terrorism since Batista lost power. I mean, actual terrorism — US bombing civilian and industrial locations, and repeated assassination attempts.
Mustang Bobby
@schrodinger’s cat: It would require changing the Cuban-America Adjustment Act. That’s the law that gave them frontsies on immigration. It really rankles the other people who come from repressive regimes because they have to go through all the hoops to prove their status, which doesn’t foment good relations with the Cubans here in Miami… not that they give a culo de raton about anyone else anyway.
D58826
@Comrade Dread: I suspect that the Chinese have murdered more of their own people since 1950 than the entire Cuban population. The same can be said for the old USSR/Russia. Somehow we have diplomatic relations with them and the sun still comes up in the east every day.
SWMBO
I looked up some of the history of Cuba during the Elian Gonzales incident. There were Cubans all over the media here crying about what a terrible thing to send him back to that hellhole. One thing that struck me at the time was he was asking for milk. With the expectation that he would get it. There were Cuban children in Miami on food stamps that didn’t have that. He seemed an adequately nourished well-adjusted child who wanted to go home.
One of the things I remember was that Castro took over the entire country with less than 100 men when he started. Let that sink in for a minute. Less than 100 to overturn the current regime. What kind of hellhole must Cuba have been for that to happen? “We’re here to free you.” And the people joined in.
Castro came to the US to ask for help and Eisenhower basically told him to f*ck off. He went to Moscow and they helped him in exchange for a missile base. We have a pretty good idea where that led us. We could have avoided a lot of shit over the decades if ol’ Ike had helped when he could have.
The Cuban exiles were pissed because the Bay of Pigs didn’t refill their wallets. Boohoo. They still want special status for their immigrants over anyone else. Boohoo. We have Iraqis that suffer more TODAY for helping us trying to get asylum here. It can’t be that bad in Cuba now with all the stories coming out from all the tourists. I realize they aren’t going to put torture or state killings as evening cabaret they don’t seem to want to be as well known for that. Some countries brag about their torture.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@raven:
You watch MTP you get burned…every time.
gocart mozart
It was only last week that the U.S. Senate exposed years of rampant abuses and torture going on in Cuba, including waterboarding and anal rape on people never accused of a crime and some later proven innocent. And now Obama wants to reward Cuba with normalized relations!!!!!!!
Wait. What? Nevermind.
Cain
@PurpleGirl:
Haha, that’s funny.. because my parents would wonder who the hell would spend all day at a science fiction convention. In my day, going to one of those was one of the most geekiest things to do. (which is why I went, and I was usually the only indian there amongst all the pale faces)
Cain
@SWMBO:
Nixon.. that asshat was the one who deployed the 7th fleet (I think) to the Indian ocean saying that he would deploy them against India if India went over the border to Pakistan after Pakistan started a war for the 3rd time. Coming over to kick their ass was a good idea.. hell, if the Indians had taken over we wouldn’t have this unstable country. Let me ask you, have you heard of a single Indian muslim doing any terrorism?
But unfortunately, the U.S. needed Pakistan for their little containment strategy against the Soviet Union and India was far too friendly with Russia for the U.S.’s comfort at the time. Perhaps if Nixon had invested time on India it would have been less than a concern. JFK was a disappointment in this regard as well.
Jamey
@Comrade Dread:
Or as Congressional Democrats call it, “bipartisanship.”
Jamey
@rikyrah: I hope he appoints Marco Rubio Ambassador to Cuba.