Miami Herald-Cuban artist and dissident Danilo Maldonado Machado, known as El Sexto, has had an image of the late opposition leader Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas tattooed on his back as a tribute to “a man who changed our way of thinking … and was assassinated.” In Spanish at Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo's blog.

Urgent plea from Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, from Placetas, where she advises that Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez is semi-unconscious in the seventh day of a hunger strike for the freedom of Jorge Vázquez Chaviano and cessation of repression against internal resistance. In Spanish, from @AntunezCuba on Twitter YouTube:

For immediate release: Diaz-Balart: Cuban Hunger Strikers Need Our Solidarity and Our Support Washington, D.C. Sept. 13, 2012 Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart spoke on the House Floor regarding the hunger strike underway in Cuba by brave human rights and pro-democracy activists to protest the regime's brutal oppression and the unjust imprisonment of political prisoners. The growing [...]

A few days ago I came across this recent video of Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez giving a camera a tour of her passport. It's about the best illustration you could possibly ask for of the regime's deliberate measures to keep the Cuban people from being exposed to life outside the communist bubble. Her passport is [...]

Tissue warning, watch for the Ladies in White.  From Iván.

From our good friend,  Mauricio Claver-Carone in today's Wall Street Journal: Cuba's American Hostage The White House calls for the release of Alan Gross but puts scant pressure on Havana to let him go. Since December 2009, American development worker Alan Gross has been imprisoned by the Castro regime for trying to help Cuba's Jewish [...]

From one not on board with the alternate reality plan for planet earth; you know the one where Cuba is a member of the U. N. Human Rights Council, has the best healthcare, and it's free!, and all our country's problems could be solved if only we just followed the Cuba model. Am I the only one thinking [...]

"Lamento tener que decirlo así, de este modo. La libertad, para mí, es un sueño. Un sueño que espero que pronto deje de ser sueño. Porque no puedo hablar de libertad si no la he tenido. No puedo hablar de libertad si lo que he conocido de ella es lo poco que he luchado y [...]

As Carlos Eire concluded in his post on the DNC Cuba platform, the party remains firmly in solidarity with Castrolandia. There's no mention of a dictatorship, and there's no mention of political prisoners or the lack of freedom. Well platform this DNC, your policy is a failure.  The continuing increase in the number of political arrests and  [...]

A young Cuban Jehovah's witness and her family have been forced out of their town over the kid's refusal to follow her teacher's instructions to write a prayer in praise of Che Guevara and the "Cuban Five." (Story in Spanish) Cuba: Niña Testigo de Jehová reprobada por no redactar oración del Che y los cinco [...]

In this video acquired by UNPACU (follow them on YouTube here), onlookers in Santiago de Cuba rush toward a damaged gas pump to collect whatever gasoline they can sell on the black market. As the video notes, just a liter of gasoline can sell for about 20 Cuban pesos (not CUC, but the regular currency) [...]

We are required to remember those events in history when humanity disappeared, and evil prevailed, lest we forget them and descend into barbarism.   To do so, we must preserve those sites, those killing arenas where atrocities occurred, whether they be fields, forests, concentration camps, or prison walls as sacred ground.  We must hold them sacred for the memory [...]

In this interview, Christine O'Donnell comments on the Romney campaign's communications strategy and its criticisms of what she calls Obama's philosophy of "collectivism." Soledad O'Brien, whose mother was born in Cuba, pounces: "Collectivism is another word for communism." From there, O'Brien rides the premise that O'Donnell is referring to "communism" through the end of the [...]

Thank you Senator.

One of the differences between voting with a ballot and voting with your feet: When you vote with your feet, some votes just count more than others. For the cause of liberty, this is one big "get." Daughter of Cuba Vice President Defects to US, Report Says Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/08/28/daughter-cuba-vice-president-defects-to-us-report-says/#ixzz24ti0DgE5 Daughter of Cuba Vice President [...]