Deal Reached to Send Florida Cattle to Cuba

[Say_What]

Farmers and other ag folks are sending a message to congress that basically says: 'Play your embargo politics a$$holes, we're going ahead with trade no matter what you do.'

********************************

<clips>

HAVANA, CUBA (October 1, 2003) -- The agreement of ALIMPORT to purchase 250 head of Florida beef cattle from J.P. Wright & Company, Inc. of Naples, Florida represents the first sale of Florida beef cattle to Cuba in over 40 years.

The details of the deal include the purchase of 80 brangus heifers from the Strickland Ranch of Manatee County, Florida, 80 brafords from the Adams Ranch of Ft. Pierce, Florida, 81 beef masters and 3 bulls from each breed. The cattle will be shipped from a Florida port in the first quarter of 2004, following two earlier shipments by Mr. Wright this past August. During the U.S. Food and Agricultural Fair in Havana last September 2002, Mr. Wright signed a contract to supply 150 head of dairy cattle.

"We are setting the foundation for the resupply of cattle from Florida to Cuba," said J. P. Wright & Company CEO Parke Wright. "Cattle trade between our two nations was a significant part of the Florida economy before the embargo. This exchange opens the door to restored ties between family farms in the U.S. and Cuba. The cattle trade between Florida and Cuba dates back to the 1850s when my ancestors began shipping their cattle from Tampa to Havana."

Wright became the first businessman from Florida to make a sale of cattle to the island since the embargo has been in place. He has been working under a license from the U.S. Treasury Department to develop and market agricultural exports to Cuba since 1999.

http://www.tuckerhall.com/cuba

[CO Liberal]

1. Can We Send the Bush Brothers to Cuba????

Can we? Can we? Huh? Huh? Huh?

:-)

[Say_What]

2. How 'bout we give the Cuban population a break

and send them to Iraq instead? ;-)

[Osolomia]

3. WHOW, Florida too! History in the making, first time in 40 years!

Things ought to get interesting this weekend, hope you’re around to keep an eye on the radar.

When is Gorbachev expected to speak? When is Noriega expected to speak? Any likely links to the transcripts? Will any of the 2004 Democratic presidential contenders speak out in support of the majority or will they continue to stand by Bush and the Batistianos no questions asked?

Meanwhile, the articles and editorials from small town America, even Florida, just keep on coming:

Cuban embargo is an outdated policy
Thursday, October 2, 2003
Independent Florida Alligator

Last summer, about 300 young Americans traveled to Cuba for the third United States-Cuba Youth Exchange for a 10-day visit. The exchange gave visitors a chance to interview Cuban leaders about all facets of Cuban society - politics, religion, art, youth and universities - in rural and urban contexts. We traveled to three different cities: Havana, Guantanamo and Santiago - cradles of Cuban revolutions. During these open forums, we could ask any questions, even of high-level leaders such as President of the National Assembly Ricardo Alarcon and other members of the assembly.

Outside of the forums, we were unrestrained to where we traveled and who we talked to. The only constraints were by one’s imagination, time and boldness to travel and explore. Not even money was a restraint - everything was quite cheap.

… The embargo is nothing but an attack on the whole of Cuba with the aim of causing the fall of the Cuban Revolution through hunger, necessity, deprivation, desperation and suffering. Forty years of economic war, sabotage and terrorism are the culprit behind more than 30,000 deaths. Still, the Cubans are strong, healthy and educated. They are waging an exemplary struggle against injustice for a more dignified and equitable society, and the revolution is popularly marching forward.

… The Soviet Union fell, and the Cold War is over. The United States needs to change its Cuba policy.

More…
http://www.alligator.org/edit/opinion/issues/stories/031002column.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. If people ever start reading the thousands of articles available

bearing reports from Americans who have travelled to Cuba, or if they get to meet any, they will finally see for themselves they are looking at first hand information from people who have been there which contradicts the propaganda we have been hearing pouring out of our State Department (Otto Reich, Office of Public Diplomacy!) for years and years.

From your article, a whisper to remind us to WAKE UP!
(snip) We traveled to three different cities: Havana, Guantanamo and Santiago - cradles of Cuban revolutions. During these open forums, we could ask any questions, even of high-level leaders such as President of the National Assembly Ricardo Alarcon and other members of the assembly.

Outside of the forums, we were unrestrained to where we traveled and who we talked to. The only constraints were by one’s imagination, time and boldness to travel and explore. (snip)

This tells us that NO, Americans are not restricted to tourists' areas, and NO, Americans are quite capable of speaking to anyone they meet, totally contrary to the propaganda.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New story on critter feed supliment, following the shipments of livestock to Cuba:

Posted on Thu, Oct. 02, 2003

Port hopes Cuba-bound shipment isn't the last
DUANE MARSTELLER
Herald Staff Writer

MANATEE - A freighter loaded with an animal-feed supplement left Port Manatee on Wednesday bound for Cuba, a journey port officials hope to make happen more often if they're allowed to go on a trade mission to the island nation.

The Carrier, a 288-foot ship chartered by the Cuban government, left the port shortly after 5 p.m. for the estimated 25-hour trip to the Cuban port of Mariel. The ship is carrying about 3,000 tons of dicalcium phosphate from PCS Phosphate in White Spring, which sold the cargo to the Cuban government.

It's the second such shipment from Port Manatee this year, and those have been the port's only non-humanitarian shipments to Cuba in its 33-year history - during all of which Cuba has been under a U.S. trade embargo.

"Everything went well" with Wednesday's shipment, said Arthur Savage of A.R. Savage & Son in Tampa, the shipping agent on behalf of Cuban buyer Alimport. (snip/...)

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradentonherald/business/6910942.htm

[Osolomia]

5. "we were unrestrained to where we traveled and who we talked to"

"we were unrestrained to where we traveled and who we talked to"

Remember that when Roger Noriega start's spewing the propaganda this weekend!

[Judi Lynn]

11. Here's some background on Roger Noriega,

Bush's head of Latin American affairs at the State Department, who succeeded Otto Reich, another sinister clown:

(snip) Reich occupied the post anyway last year under a recess appointment that did not require confirmation. During this period, he distinguished himself by bungling the U.S. role in an inept coup designed to topple President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. When the coup failed, the U.S. was left hanging out there, the only sovereign state to endorse Chavez’ overthrow other than the Holy See. Given this performance, it was clear that Reich would have to go.

Which left a desirable vacancy available for Noriega, who himself had quietly slipped through the Senate confirmation process in the wake of September 11. He then took up his new post as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, the regional body for the Western Hemisphere. Roger was biding his time there. In fact, throughout his undistinguished career, Roger typically cools his heels, collects a six-figure tax-free salary, and lies in wait at the OAS for a better position. His dubious political connections first landed him an OAS sinecure in 1991 writing technical brochures that no one read. At the time, he needed a place to hide out because he had been superficially burned by Iran/Contra, the whimsical foreign policy episode conducted by Oliver North, John Poindexter and Ronald Reagan in Central America.

Roger’s political injuries from that caper were minimal, although he was deeply involved. He had been at USAID at the time, where he oversaw "non-lethal aid" shipments to the Contras. In subsequent investigations, unseemly associations surfaced. For example, a Miami-based money launderer with ties to the Medellin cartel testified to a Senate committee that he personally had cleaned up $230,000 by cycling it through a bank account used for non-lethal Contra aid. While at USAID, Roger also steered a $750,000 grant to the Thomas A. Dooley Foundation, headed by Verne Chaney, a close colleague of retired General John Singlaub, who, in turn, helped Oliver North run the illegal arms supply network to the Contras during the U.S. aid cutoff. For his part, Chaney did a survey of the Contras’ medical needs in 1985 together with Rob Owen, who was subsequently nailed as Ollie North’s bag man. When this all blew up into televised hearings, special prosecutors, threatened indictments and jail terms, Noriega found it convenient to lie low. (snip)

(snip) After Iran/Contra blew over, Noriega moved on to a job with Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), then chair of the House International Relations Committee, where he unsuccessfully undertook to implicate the security guards of Jean Bertrand Aristide, President of Haiti, in a series of political killings in Port-au-Prince and an attempt on the life of the Haitian ambassador in Washington (TO, May 22, 1998). From there, he went to work directly for Jesse Helms as a senior staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he tried to secure a tighter embargo of Cuba, endearing himself to the Florida Cubans, Otto Reich and that whole sick crew. The Washington Post wrote about this stint: "Roger F. Noriega earned a reputation for many things. Tact was not one of them. He was ultra conservative, intolerant and even hostile to people with opposing views. And as the Republicans’ Latin America expert on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Jesse Helms, he left the U.S. diplomatic corps deeply wounded. His was an unforgettable ‘reign of terror,’ for those who lived through it."
(snip/...)

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1278

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wouldn't you think that the more people start looking at these people the greater the chance they are going to start seeing the pattern, finally, in US/Cuba relations?

[Osolomia]

6. It's cropping up all over the place these days!

Here's yet another example from today's newsfeeds:

Lifestyle Calendar
October 2, 2003
Hartford Advocate, Connecticut

ACTIVISM

... Andrés Gómez: U.S.-Cuba Relations Today: Gómez is an outspoken advocate within Miami's Cuban-American community for ending the hostility and opening relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Mon., Oct. 6, 6:30 p.m. Free. Central Baptist Church, 457 Main St., Hartford, [phone].

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/Lifestyle/content?oid=oid:36250

[Osolomia]

7. National Summit on Cuba - Saturday, October 4th 2003

The World Policy Institute Cuba Project
Puentes Cubanos
Cuban Committee for Democracy
Fundación Amistad
The Time is Now Coalition
Cambio Cubano
Americans For Humanitarian Trade With Cuba

Invite you to the

Florida National Summit on Cuba

Saturday, October 4th 2003
Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, Florida

Keynote Speaker
Mikhail Gorbachev

The U.S. State Department is currently reviewing all aspects of U.S. policy toward Cuba. Polls show a majority of Cuban-Americans have lost faith in current policy and are seeking new options that will promote the reunification of the divided Cuban family and address the needs of the Cuban people as they themselves express them. Changing national-security needs and new commercial opportunities are compelling Americans at large to reconsider relations with an important neighbor. The role of the international community is becoming an important part of the debate. The Summit will address the changing dynamics of the Cuba equation and explore what an effective, proactive U.S. policy could be, and what we can realistically expect it to achieve.

AGENDA

8:00am- Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:30am- Greetings from Cosponsors / Conference Overview and Goals
8:45am- Introductory Comments on behalf of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
Shelley McConnell, Ph.D.-Associate Director, The Americas Program, The Carter Center will read a message of welcome from President Carter
9:00am - Our National Interest, Our National Security
Moderator: Lissa Weinmann, Cuba Project, World Policy Institute
General John Sheehan, USMC (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief US Atlantic Command, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic
The Honorable William D. Rogers- Vice Chair, Kissinger Associates, former Under Secretary of State
William Ratliff- Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Ken Lindeman Ph.D.- Senior Scientist and Cuba Program Director, Environmental Defense
Michael Dow-Mayor of Mobile, Alabama
10:00am - Florida: A Changing Political Equation?
Moderator: Alfredo Duran- Cuban Committee for Democracy
Patricia Frank-Hillsborough County Commissioner
Kenneth Lipner, Ph.D.- Professor of Economics, Florida International University
Joe McClash- Manatee County Commissioner and Chairman of Port Manatee
Alvaro Fernández- Florida Director, SW Voter Registration Education Project
Former Florida State Rep. Annie Betancourt (District 115)
Rob Schroth- President, Schroth & Associates, conducted February 2003 poll on Cuban-American attitudes toward U.S.-Cuba policy
11:00am - Points of View from the New Generation of Cuban-Americans
Moderator: Silvia Wilhelm- Puentes Cubanos
Alejandro Portes, Ph.D.- Professor of Sociology, Princeton University
Elisabeth Cerejido- Exhibitions Coordinator, FIU Art Museum
José Latour- Immigration Attorney/Journalist/Musician/Former U.S. Diplomatic Officer
Cynthia Barrera- Ph.D. Candidate at University of Miami School of International Studies and Producer of Maria Elvira Confronta, one of the most popular Latin shows
Mayda Prego- Attorney with Hughes, Hubbard and Reed, Miami
12:15pm- Lunch in the Alhambra & Granada Rooms
1:30pm - The Human Dimensions of U.S. Policy
Moderator: Luly Duke-Fundación Amistad
José Miguel Vivanco- Executive Director, Americas Division, Human Rights Watch
Holly Ackerman, Ph.D.- Country Specialist for Cuba, Amnesty International USA
Robert Bach, Ph.D.- Senior Visiting Fellow, Inter-American Dialogue and former Executive Associate Commissioner for Policy, Planning and Programs, Immigration and Naturalization Service
Thomas Wenski- Coadjutor Bishop of Orlando, former Bishop of Miami
Donna Hicks, Ph.D.- Associate, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Peter Bourne, MD- Co-Chair MEDICC Academic Council, Former Chairman of the American Association for World Health, Special Assistant to the President for Health Issues in the Carter White House, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
James Early - Director of Cultural Heritage Policy, Smithsonian Institution
2:30pm – Impetus for and Implications of Open Travel to Cuba
Moderator: Antonio Zamora- The Time is Now Coalition
Representative William Delahunt (D-MA)
Phil Peters- Vice President, Lexington Institute, staff of State Department under Reagan
Bradley Belt –Executive Director of the newly formed Association of Travel Related Industry Professionals (ATRIP)
3:30pm - The U.S., Cuba and the International Community: A Multilateral Perspective
Moderator: Patricia Gutierrez-Menoyo- Cambio Cubano
Joaquín Roy, Ph.D.- Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the EU Center at the University of Miami
Dr. Karl Buck, European Union Council of Minsters
The Honorable Mark Entwistle- former Canadian Ambassador to Cuba
John McAuliff – Expert on US opening to Vietnam, Fund For Reconciliation and Development
4:30pm - Closing Remarks
William LeoGrande, Ph.D.- Dean, School of Public Affairs, American University
5:00-6:00pm- Main Reception in Country Club Courtyard
5:00 - 6:00pm - Private Reception with keynote speaker in the Danielson Gallery
7:00pm - Dinner
7:45pm - Introduction of Keynote Speaker
Michael Putney, Political Commentator for ABC news affiliate in Miami, Channel 10.
8:00pm - Keynote Address given by • MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
8:30pm - Question and Answer Session

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/uscuba/summitinvite.html

[Say_What]

8. The other conference with Noriega is bankrolled by USAID

<clips>

Text: USAID Awards $1 Million Grant for Cuba Transition Project

(Miami Institute will study Cuba's transition to democracy) (440)

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced on
February 21 a grant of $1,045,000 for a study of the many issues
surrounding Cuba's transition to democracy. The grant was given to the
University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies.

According to the USAID press release, "The Cuba Transition Project
will focus on identifying and assessing the challenges to a democratic
transition in a post-Castro Cuba. The CTP also will build a
comprehensive database on Cuba's economy, demography and
communications and physical infrastructure."

http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ar/us-cuba/usaid23.htm

---

From USAID's website (May 2003):

...C. HELPING DEVELOP INDEPENDENT CUBAN NGOs

1. Partners of the Americas ($172,000 - completed)
2. Pan American Development Foundation ($553,500)
3. ACDI-VOCA: Independent Agricultural Cooperatives ($265,000 - completed)
4. University of Miami: Developing Civil Society ($320,000 - completed)
5. Florida International University: NGO Development ($291,749)

...F. PLANNING FOR TRANSITION

1. Rutgers University: Planning for Change ($99,000 - completed)
2. Int'l Foundation for Election Systems ($136,000 - completed)
3. U.S. - Cuba Business Council ($852,000 - completed)
4. University of Miami: Cuba Transition Planning ($1,545,000)
5. Georgetown University Scholarships ($400,000)


...# University of Miami: Cuba Transition Planning

Analyzes challenges that will face a future transition government in Cuba, including: legal reform, political party formation, privatization and foreign investment, combating corruption, education reform, economic policy reform, international donor coordination.

http://www.usaid.gov/regions/lac/cu/upd-cub.htm

[Mika]

9. Looks like U of Miami Prez Donna Shalala's pandering paid off

Donna Shalala doing a little anti Cuba ass kissing and propagandizing for the "exiles" does the trick when it comes to getting even more US taxpayer funding for the U of Miami.



Three words from Jesse Helms on Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

10. Have to mention Roger Noriega's connection to Jesse Helms

A lot of people aren't aware of it:

(snip) The bad news is that the rabidly anti-communist, reactionary Reich has not gone far. Bush has invented a new post for his protegé as ‘Special Envoy for Western Hemispheric Initiatives’ based in the executive building next to the White House. His job includes ‘homeland security issues in the Caribbean’ and ‘aspects of Cuba policy’, focusing in particular on people-to-people contacts between Americans and Cubans and ‘transitional issues in the post-Castro period’. Not much to celebrate there, then.

Nor has the Miami Mafia’s hold over George Bush diminished: Bush has replaced Reich with another anti-Cuban fanatic, Roger Noriega. Noriega has a long history of subversive and dirty propaganda activities with congressional committees and imperialist front organisations such as the Organisation of American States (OAS) and USAID. In 2001 he was awarded the Grand Master of the Order of the Sun by the corrupt, neo-liberal government of Peru for his support for ‘the democratic transition and promotion of human rights’! For several years Noriega was the right-hand man to arch-reactionary Jesse Helms, the co-sponsor of the Helms-Burton Act.

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/helms.html

[Say_What]

12. Exile desparation

In response to Gorbachev coming to Miami to participate in the Florida National Summit on Cuba, the pro-embargo, anti-Cuba fanatics are planning their own, USAID-bankrolled conference in the same hotel with Roger Noriega, the latest Bush-appointed chihuahua to Latin America. This is the third or fourth time they have tried to have equal time with the growing anti-embargo movement. If they had the clout they once had, they could simply ignore the conference like they used to. This opinion piece ran in today's Miami Herald:

<clips>
Keep U.S. embargo on Cuba

Mikhail Gorbachev is coming to Miami. He was invited by academic groups and institutions eager to end the U.S. trade embargo imposed on the Cuban dictatorship.

Among the hosts and sponsors, there are Republican and Democratic politicians and exporters who have no horizons other than increasing their sales. There are people closely related to U.S. circles of power, including its intelligence corps and those directly controlled by the Cuban government's police apparatus. There are pro-Castro and anti-Castro people.

There are ''strategists'' certain that fluid relations between Washington and Havana will accelerate the end of communism. There are others convinced that those links now will help consolidate the regime at its worst economic moment and tomorrow will guarantee the survival of communism after Castro's death -- objectives that they see as commendable and consonant with the interests of the government they admire or secretly serve.

No better person than Gorbachev exists to preside over an event at which each group hopes for different and sometimes contradictory results. After all, Gorbachev is the quintessence of paradox: He rose to power to save communism and ended up burying it. The KGB placed him at the helm so that he could restore the Soviet Union's glory, and he wound up causing its dissolution.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/6911136.htm

[Judi Lynn]

13. What a BLOWHARD!

Really handing out the complements, wasn't he? The author, Carlos Alberto Montaner gets quoted with wild abandon when Cuban "exile" posters are in their full-tilt-bull-goose-looney mode on message boards. They see this bag of hot air as godlike.

Look at how he complements people attending the HUMONGOUS conference in Miami:

(snip) Among the hosts and sponsors, there are Republican and Democratic politicians and exporters who have no horizons other than increasing their sales.(snip)

OUCH!

(snip) There are others convinced that those links now will help consolidate the regime at its worst economic moment and tomorrow will guarantee the survival of communism after Castro's death -- objectives that they see as commendable and consonant with the interests of the government they admire or secretly serve.

Wow! Pain! Pain!

He'd be hilarious, if you didn't also know these guys think it's just fine to bomb their political enemies to kingdom come!


Montaner

[Mika]

15. And an asshole too

" There are pro-Castro and anti-Castro people."


Hmmm.. sound familiar?

[Judi Lynn]

14. Cuba helping Bermuda with a perplexing asbestos problem

It's strange reading in the article that the U. S. Navy actually left asbestos in Bermuda for Bermuda to deal with alone!


(snip) Cuba may provide asbestos answer


By Ayo Johnson



Cuba could help solve Bermuda's asbestos waste disposal problem – if a proposal on the table is accepted by Government.
The deal, spearheaded by local company Island Construction Services (ICS), would indemnify Bermuda from liability should anything go awry with the asbestos once it leaves Bermuda's shores.
It is just one of several proposals on the table and none of them will be seriously considered until the completion of a planned review to be paid for by the British Government.
Government is not rushing into a final resolution of the asbestos disposal problem but any deal which includes indemnification would be of some interest as Government is keen to avoid liability should the Island's asbestos waste cause problems elsewhere.
ICS president Zane DeSilva confirmed that his company and subsidiaries had negotiated for Cuban companies to receive the Island's asbestos for reprocessing in Cuba.
The Cuban Government owned companies had provided notarised documents indemnifying Bermuda in case of any problems.
The proposal concerned some 285 containers of domestically generated asbestos but could easily be expanded to include asbestos left here by the US Navy. (snip)

(snip) Bermuda's asbestos problem is multi-pronged but centres around what to do with a steadily growing number of containers filled with discarded asbestos from the former United States Baselands and from Bermuda buildings.
(snip/...)

http://www.theroyalgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031002/NEWS/110020071

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuba watchers may remember that not long ago, Bermuda planned to sell its used buses to Cuba, and that the U.S. State Department got wind of this, and put sufficient pressure on Bermuda, through the ambassador, really LEANED on them, 'til they dropped the idea.

It was an ugly case of a HUGE country butting into a private business arrangement between two small islands. Creepy, isn't it?

[Vogon_Glory]

16. Shades of a 1950's Travel Advertisement!

I'm reminded of an old 1950's travel advertisement aimed at would-be railroad passengers seeking to travel cross-country. The headline for the ad was "A pig can travel across America, but you can't."

Looks like this is another accidental victory for right-wing ideologues in trying to bring back their vision of what was for them the good old days, except this time the tag would read "A cow can travel to Cuba, but you can't!"

[underpants]

17. Do cows float?

Plese tell me they aren't going to try to pull off something like the pony crossing at Chicoteague. It's 94 miles away they'll never make it.

[Say_What]

18. Sailing right past the blockade--First shipment sailed last July

<clips>

From the nation's heartland, a shipment of cattle and bison is bound for Cuba, taking a Caribbean cruise that will earn the animals a place in history.

After four decades of trade restrictions, these are the first U.S. cattle shipped to Cuba, other than a few sent to the island last November during a trade show, said Ralph Kaehler, a St. Charles farmer whose family arranged the shipment from Midwestern farms.

These dairy and beef cattle and buffalos are sailing past trade blockades that have been in place since the 1959 Cuban revolution.

After a hurricane battered Cuba in 2001, the U.S. government relaxed export restrictions to allow cash-only sales of food and agricultural products. The battle was on for the Cuban market.

http://www.minnesotaagconnection.com/story-state.cfm?Id=667&yr=2003

[underpants]

19. That's becasue their farmers are leaving

[Mika]

20. Those Chevy truck rafters were denied legal visas & weren't farmers

After the USCG returned them to Cuba they, at US request, applied for legal US immigration visas at the US interests section in Havana (the US offers over 20,000 legal immigration visas to Cubans per year).

The US INS denied their immigration applications because they didn't qualify after a criminal background check that the US interest section does in Cuba.

But, IF they had touched US soil they would have been granted legal immgration status via the US's "wet foot/ dry foot" policy and the US's Cuban Adjustment Act - regardless of the fact that 1) they would have entered the US illegally, 2) they would not have had to undergo the criminal background check that is required of all other legal immigrants.



Cuban illegal immigrants (most of whom are smuggled-in @ $5,000-$10,000 per head), INCLUDING VIOLENT CRIMINAL FELONS WHO WOULD FAIL THE REQUIRED BACKGROUND CHECK, are given a full and free pass (including instant US "green card" qualification, instant Social Security, instant welfare, instant sec 8 assisted housing, and more), and are released within 24 hours onto the streets of Miami.


This insanity must stop.

[underpants]

21. I didn't mean to make fun of them

THAT is the kind of spirit we need in this country. For their inventiveness and ability to construct that and keep it quiet alone they should have been given visas.

[Mika]

22. They were ex felons who were denied a legal visa by the USINS

More felons entering is not the spirit we need more of in this country!

I am for legal immigration, not illegal immigration.. especially not illegal immigration by ex felons who get a free pass just because they happen to be Cuban, who otherwise DO NOT qualify for legal immigration.

If you like the spirit of lawlessness, vote Bush.

[underpants]

24. Okay

:spank:

[Osolomia]

25. Bravo, that's about the best DUhers can do apparently

even with the golden opportunity of a bipartisan majority handed to them on a silver platter Dems are apparently hell bent on blowing this one big time while keeping their heads in the sand. What a shame, you think no one notices?

[Say_What]

23. USCG promised to return their *vessel* to Cuba,

instead they blew it up. El exilie was plenty pissed off about that.

The floating truck gives you an idea how resourceful the Cubans have become over 40+ years of being embargoed by their ugly neighbor to the north. During the special period they got real creative with bicycles as well, not to mention food. The organic farming endeavor worked so well that the Cuban government passed a law making organic farming compulsory.

<clips>

...In 1993 and 1994 the country experienced a severe food shortage with the population on the brink of starvation.

With the collapse of Cuba's cold war trading partners - the Soviet Union and its socialist satellite states - imports such as artificial fertilisers and pesticides ground to a halt.

What was to be done? The Cuban government's answer was transform derelict city plots into well-funded vegetable gardens under the supervision of organic farming associations.

Doctor Fernando Funes, who heads the association of agricultural and forestry technicians (ACTAF), says back in the 1990's when prices were high many people were despairing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1409898.stm