The United States and Venezuela are to reinstate ambassadors to Caracas and Washington, setting aside a diplomatic spat that soured ties last year.
Must be "Kumbaya with Commie Thugs" week at the White House:
President Barack Obama plans to return an ambassador to Syria, filling a post that has been vacant for four years and marking an acceleration of Washington's engagement with the Arab world, the White House said on Wednesday.
Tampa will lose part of its cigar heritage in August when Hav-A-Tampa shuts its factory near Seffner and lays off about 495 employees, closing a factory that has been operating since 1902.
The company announced the closing today.
[...]
Several things conspired to hurt Altadis' sales, McKenzie said, including the recession and the growth of indoor smoking bans. The bans have especially hurt sales in cold-weather states, where it's impractical to smoke a cigar outdoors in the winter, he said.
However, the company attributed much of its trouble to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, a federal program that provides health insurance to low-income children. It is funded, in part, by a new federal tax on cigars and cigarettes. McKenzie couldn't say how much sales of Hav-A-Tampa cigars had fallen off, but the numbers have dropped significantly, he said.
Previously, federal excise taxes on cigars were limited to no more than a nickel, said Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America trade group. The tax increase, which took effect April 1, raises the maximum tax on cigars to about 40 cents, Sharp said.
Before the tax increase was passed, the cigar industry warned that consumption of cigars could fall as much as 30 percent in the year after its passage. It's not clear yet how big of an impact the law is having on sales, Sharp said.
And thank you, Charlie Crist, for caring so much you fuck over 500 Floridians and their families.
We’ve gone from one extreme to the other. Three years ago we had a president who spoke for long hours in front of the microphones and now we rely on another who doesn’t send a single word our way. I confess I prefer the restrained style, but there are a lot of explanations outstanding which, in the face of so much discontent, are urgent. Someone has to stand up and explain why the wage reform failed, the reason for delaying the handover of the so critical supply of land, and the reasons that prevented them from reducing the gap between the Cuban peso and the convertible currency.
A face must show itself to give us an account of what stopped the elimination of the need for permission to travel outside Cuba, what happened with the repeated slogan of reducing imports, or what path was taken by the so-called business improvement program. The same voice that in 2007 declared that hopefully there would be “a glass of milk within reach of everyone” needs to reveal to us now why it has become so difficult to put the precious liquid into the mouths of our children. This man who reignited the illusions of many of my compatriots, must now express himself and confess his failure or at least tell us of his limitations.
I am waiting for a clarification about why he hasn’t accepted Obama’s proposal for U.S. telecommunications companies to provide Internet to the Cuban people. I demand, like many around me, a convincing argument for why we are not going to join the OAS, or the reasons for not implementing, still, the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The list of unanswered questions is long and to hide from so many questions is not going to solve the problems. Please, let somebody—with answers—show his face soon.
However, I find it optimistic, at best. It's not that nobody in the Cuban government is listening. They listen alright and they know exactly what 's going on.
It's that, as fifty years have so thoroughly proven, the regime doesnt care about her discontent. It doesnt care about her or anyone else's wages. It doesnt care about the gap in the dual monetary system. Nor does the regime care about Cubans being able to travel abroad freely, reducing imports or improving business.
Fifty years have thoroughly proven that the castro regime doesnt give a rats ass about how much milk your child has to drink and they certainly dont care to answer any questions about the lack of that precious liquid on Cuban tables.
The only thing that regime cares about - its prime directive - is remaining in absolute power at the expense of the rights of the Cuban people. Nothing more and nothing less.
Demanding answers isnt going to work. You cant shame the shameless.
Now I've confirmed, without a reasonable doubt, and to a degree of moral certainty, why our country is in the Marianas Trench-sized shithole it's in today. Watch this video and be amazed and frightened. Be very, very frightened...
OK, amigos, just when you thought the pop-world could not possibly get more brain-damaged, Folk legend Judy "Sweet Judy Blue-Eyes" Collins penned a tribute to Che Guevara...But she did it in 1973.
Among the brilliant lyrics:
"The peasants smiled and shouted as they hurried by"
No you Moron, the peasants denounced Che and his merry band to the Bolivian Rangers and CHEERED(!!) when these Stalinist guerrillas were executed!
"You have it in your hands
To own your lives, to own your lands "
No you Moron. Che's system would have converted them into robots at Soviet gunpoint and STOLEN their lands!
S. Carolina Gov., Cuban "embargo" foe, and multiple Cuba traveler Mark Sanford admits to whooping it up with Argentine senorita during Fathers Day, after telling his wife and sons he was hiking in the Smokies.
From a Chicago Tribune article back in 2000:
"Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), a supporter of engaging Castro by allowing more commerce and travel to Cuba..." Sanford said the GOP leadership is blocking the bill "due to political contributions and influence from the Cuban community. It's legitimate, but that's how the game is played in Washington."
"So this last fall on my own dime, I bought a ticket to Cuba. I went in essence illegally, if you want to call it that. Turns out I could have gone, so I didn't actually go illegally, as a member of Congress, but I went below the radar screen. I bought my own ticket to Nassau and from there I bought a ticket on Havana Tour from Nassau down to Havana."
Two pieces in Big Hollywood about the new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., dealing with those pesky members of the Religion of Peace® and the way they deal with the scary members of the opposite sex. First, read the review and then read "The Whitewashing of Soraya M." about the current state of affairs in our media regarding this important film.
Where Val pisses a bunch of people off, once again.
Lots of folks commenting on the Iran election protests, mostly equating the situation with the government there to that of Cuba. And for the most part, I agree that both the Iranian and Cuban governments are cut of the same mold. Unfortunately, the similarities pretty much end there.
The best coverage on the Iran protest by far has been at Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit. Just click and scroll down and you will see the absolute brutality or the Iranian government against it's people.
What you see in the pictures posted there and elsewhere isn't just a government run amok, brutalizing its people without prejudice. What you see are a people risking it all for what they truly believe. Risking it all for themselves and their families and their fellow countrymen.
There have never been, aren't now and will most likely never be anti-castro protests of that magnitude in Cuba.
2009 DEMOCRACY AWARD WILL HONOR CUBAN DISSIDENTS ON JUNE 24
Five honorees represent a new and diverse generation of democratic activists
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) will honor the courage and determination of five Cuban democracy activists with the presentation of its annual Democracy Award at a Capitol Hill ceremony and reception on Wednesday, June 24, 2009.
“The five brave Cubans we honor this year represent the future of their country,” said NED Chairman Richard Gephardt. “All of them have endured significant personal hardhip for nothing more than standing up for basic rights and freedoms. With this award, we hope to express our solidarity with their struggle, and let them know that we share their dream of a free and democratic Cuba. “
More info, including short bios of the award recipients and more event details, right here.
Last night in Cuba:
Leading Activists Arrested on Eve of Major Award to Cuban Democratic Resistance
Placetas, Villa Clara. June 23, 2009. Cuban Democratic Directorate. Five Cuban pro-democracy activists were unjustly detained by totalitarian Cuba’s repressive apparatus this afternoon. The arrests came on the eve of the official ceremony for the National Endowment for Democracy’s prestigious Democracy Award, which will recognize five activists of Cuba’s democratic resistance. Two of the honorees are among the detained: Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez of the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners and Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera of the Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights.
According to a telephone statement given to Directorio by Loreto Hernández García, a member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoners and Antúnez’s brother, the other detained activists are Donaida Pérez Paseiro, Aramilda Contreras and Yaité Cruz Sosa, all three members of the Rosa Parks Women’s Movement for Civil Rights. The arrests occurred after the Rosa Parks Movement held a peaceful meeting at a public park in Placetas.
“State Security arrives at the house and takes away opposition activist Donaida Pérez, detained. Idel González, Agent in Charge of Confrontation, tells her she bothers him, that he was going to stick her in jail and that he was going to sentence her to two years imprisonment. They arrest the rest near the park. I go to the police unit and they tell me they will be detained for 48 or 72 hours for counterrevolutionary actions, and that they’re going to bring charges against Pérez Paseiro,” stated Hernández García.
An uncertain summer awaits us, where they announce power cuts, higher prices and where there is even a prediction of an emigration stampede. Many Cubans, however, faced with the dilemma of solving their daily problems or trying to change something, prefer to concentrate on personal survival. They organize an escape from the national borders, evade the laws or, what amounts to the same thing, turn to crime. There are not only those who climb through the window of a warehouse at night or grab the backpack of an innocent tourist, but also the warehouseman who alters invoices or the custodian who breaks the seal of the container he is protecting. There is a socially accepted way of breaking the law that consists of stealing from the State. It includes the waiter who adds to the prices or introduces goods into the restaurant that he purchased himself to sell as if they were “of the house” and the shopkeeper who changes the list of customers at the ration market so he will have leftover goods.
The line of illegality also extends to the hotel desk clerk who, in cahoots with the manager, rents a room off the register, the taxi driver who makes a trip without turning on the meter, or the lathe operator who produces a piece “outside” the production plan. The customs officer who lets prohibited objects through, the police who don’t impose a fine, the housing official who speeds up an application, the teacher who raises a grade, and the inspector who becomes blind to the violations he should report.
The walls of the bubble that protect the speeches are strengthened by the profits from these “misdeeds,” but they also discourage public protest. The fruits of so many illegalities end up on the counters of foreign currency shops, they are exchanged for the rechargeable lamps that will light some houses this summer. Meanwhile, outside, who cares that the blackout reigns.
recent comments
FreedomForCuba: Prefer ten George W. Bush in office than one of Obama’s ears.
FreedomForCuba: Yes indeed Alberto, The most ironic part of the “loving” left is that it loves to hate...
FreedomForCuba: Maybe Humberto, the Miami shoreline is very much fished out.
Alberto de la Cruz: Some people go by who they hate, not who they like, Pototo. The left is driven by hate. They feed...
pototo: I bet count likes Truman. He introduced us to nuclear war. Now wasn’t he a democrat…?
Alberto de la Cruz: CountNomis, you deserve credit for cramming so much inane nonsense into one short comment. You...
CountNomis: I wonder if they will have an exhibit on waterboarding since he was the president whose legacy was to...