Lost in translation: GOP platform DOES include Cuba travel restrictions

Memo to those assembling the GOP platform for the upcoming Republican National Convention: Don't say restrictions on Cuba trade aren't a plank when it is.

A GOP platform that mentions support for the Cuban embargo isn't news. It's like Republicans affirming their support for tax cuts. A GOP platform without Cuba? That's news. Very big news.

So when the Los Angeles Times today attended an RNC platform meeting and two Republican officials mentioned that Cuba wasn't part of the platform, it obviously was news. Very big news. After all, Republican vice-presidential pick Paul Ryan had an anti-embargo voting record until about 2007, Republican Cuba experts say. After that, they say, Ryan became more pro-embargo (more here).

Mitt Romney's campaign quickly responded to the story by noting that the platform does include language that supports restrictions on Cuba. And they blame the story on supporters of Congressman Ron Paul, a free-trader.

"Alternatively, we will stand with the true democracies of the region against both Marxist subversion and the drug lords, helping them to become prosperous alternatives to the collapsing model of Venezuela and Cuba.

Rep. Michael Bileca gets ad love for challenged law banning hiring of firms tied to Cuba

No one was more vocal in praising a new Florida law prohibiting the state and local governments from hiring foreign-owned companies that do business in Cuba than Mauricio Claver-Carone, the executive director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC.

Now the Washington D.C.-based Claver-Carone, through another entity, Cuba Democracy Public Advocacy, has paid for a spot on Miami Spanish-language radio lauding state Rep. Michael Bileca. The Miami Republican, who faces GOP challenger Geno Perez in the Aug. 14 primary, was one of the sponsors of the law.

There's no mention in the ad that the law is now tied up in court.

A Miami federal judge blocked the law, saying it is unconstitutional because states cannot set foreign policy. The state has appealed.

The suit was brought forth by Odebrecht USA, the Coral Gables-based affiliate of the Brazilian engineering and construction giant that was one of the law's primary targets.

The ad says Bileca "did not let himself be intimidated" when he filed the legislation, which also bans the hiring of companies with business ties to Syria. But the bill flew under the radar in Tallahassee this year, and firms that were directly affected, such as Odebrecht, had no idea that it would be passed until after a near-unanimous majority of legislators approved it.

"We are profoundly grateful to Rep. Bileca for his leadership and exemplary decorum," the ad says. "Call Rep. Bileca and say thank you for confronting economic interests that fight the regimes that keep the Cuban and Syrian people oppressed."

Allen West: Read your Sun Tzu, beware of Russia building a Cuba naval base to be Castro's 'sugar daddy.'

BizPAC Review alerted us to this interesting snippet of a speech from U.S. Rep. Allen West, a retired colonel, who was asked about new reports of Russia wanting a new military base in Cuba.

It's unclear right now if Russia really wants a base that could be as close as 90 miles away from U.S. shores. Russia's top naval officer said on state TV Friday that it's in talks to build a base or bases in Cuba, Vietnam and the Seychelles island nation in the Indian Ocean. But then, on Saturday, Russia's foreign minister dismissed the talk as a media "fantasy."

Indeed, comrade.

Asked about the possibility of a Russian base in Cuba and President Obama's possible response, West said he couldn't speculate about what would happen. But he expressed concerns about multiple threats in our hemisphere:

"Cuba is looking for a new sugar daddy. And when you look at what's happening in our hemisphere, as a I say, you have Iran in our hemisphere. You're looking at Russian naval vessels coming into our hemisphere. Now, if you go down and talk to the United States Southern Command in Miami, Florida, who oversees this hemisphere all the way down to Latin America, the only real military presence we have is the Coast Guard. We don't have anything in this hemisphere. But yet you have Hezbolla training camps, you have Hugo Chavez, you have the Ortega brothers, you have narco traffickers in Mexico that are working with Iran and Hezbollah. How much did you hear about the assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador and also the Israeli ambassador?...."

West's comments leave the impression that the United States is militarily naked in South Florida. It's not.

Florida appeals Miami federal judge ruling against law prohibiting hiring of companies tied to Cuba

The state of Florida is appealing a Miami federal judge's decision to strike down a law prohibiting governments from hiring companies with business ties to Cuba.

Last month, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore blocked the law from taking effect on July 1, as scheduled. Odebrecht USA, the Coral Gables-based affiliate of the giant Brazilian engineering and construction conglomerate, had sued the Florida Department of Transportation, saying it's not the state's role to set foreign policy. The law also applies to companies linked to Syria.

In a statement, Gov. Rick Scott said FDOT filed the appeal Tuesday afternoon. 

"As I have said before, the Castro and Assad governments are undeniably repressive, and it is important that Florida taxpayers do not support dictators that suppress freedom," Scott said. "I firmly believe this law is right for Florida and will continue to defend it going forward."

Miami federal judge blocks new Florida anti-Cuba law

A Miami federal judge on Monday blocked Florida from enforcing a new state law that prohibits governments from hiring companies with business ties to Cuba.

A temporary injunction, ordered by U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore, prevents the law from taking effect on Sunday as scheduled. And it deals a blow to the politicians who backed the legislation, which was sponsored by Miami-Dade lawmakers, approved by a near-unanimous majority of the Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott.

After an hour-long hearing late Monday, Moore ruled from the bench in favor of Odebrecht Construction, the Coral Gables-based subsidiary of a Brazilian engineering and construction giant.

“It’s not as if there isn’t some precedent there and there hasn’t been a run at this effort in the past,” the judge said, referring to previous failed legislative efforts to make it difficult to conduct business with Cuba.

Odebrecht USA sued the Florida Department of Transportation earlier this month over the new law, which would ban state and local government agencies from awarding future contracts worth at least $1 million to U.S. firms whose foreign-owned parent companies or affiliates conduct business in Cuba or Syria. A subsidiary of Odebrecht USA’s parent company is expanding the Cuban Port of Mariel. Full story here.

SCOTUS leaves Florida's research travel ban to 'terrorist' nations intact

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact a controversial Florida law that restricts researchers at state colleges and universities from traveling to Cuba and other “terrorist states,” despite indications last year that the court would consider a review.

Amid the flurry of rulings from the high court on Monday was a denial of certiorari on Florida’s “Travel to Terrorist States Act.” The action effectively lets stand a lower court ruling upholding the 2006 law that bars public schools and universities from using state money for travel to countries such as Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria and other nations considered “sponsors of terrorism.”

The court decision deals a “devastating blow” to Florida universities, said Howard Simon of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union which challenged the law, along with faculty at Florida International University, the University of South Florida and the University of Florida. He predicted it will lead to an exodus of faculty and research dollars from Florida schools.

“The research is not going to end. It will just be done by universities elsewhere outside of Florida,’’ Simon said. “It will keep us in an enforced state of ignorance.”

Fidel Castro, the totalitarian Haiku master

Is Fidel Castro laughing himself silly as he watches readers of his recent Haiku-like commentaries try to make sense of them? Is he sending serious but thinly veiled messages? Or is he just slipping mentally?

In cryptic paragraphs of never more than 65 words, the former Cuban president has written about yoga poses, edible plants, a criticism of Cuba by a Chinese leader who died 15 years ago and a former leader of communist East Germany who died even further back.

Castro’s pronouncements have sparked quizzical looks, jokes about his mental state as he approaches his 86th birthday on Aug. 13 and convoluted efforts by supporters to explain his odd words.

“I respect all religions, though I don’t believe in them. Human beings, from the dumbest to the wisest, search for an explanation for their existence. Science constantly searches for the laws that guide the universe. At this time, it is in an expansion started about 13,700 million years ago,” he wrote in a short missive published Tuesday by government websites.

“Yogis can do things with the human body that escape our imagination. They are there, before our eyes, on images that arrive instantly from enormous distances through Pasage a lo Desconocido,” he noted in a 35-word post earlier Tuesday.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/20/2857858/fidel-castro-leaves-people-guessing.html#storylink=twt#storylink=cpy

More here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/20/2857858/fidel-castro-leaves-people-guessing.html#storylink=twt#storylink=cpy

Despite top Democrat concerns, WH spox Jay Carney sounds clueless about Castro visit brouhaha

Wow. Just wow.

Miami Herald alum and McClatchy White House correspondent Lesley Clark asked White House spokesman Jay Carney about the concerns over the administration's decision to give Mariela Castro a visa last week. And Carney, who likes to scold the press for covering trivial things like the birther issue, sounded so unprepared that he wanted to talk about something else. Donald Trump, anyone?

Here's a refresher: Democratic National Committeewoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (also a Congresswoman) and Sen. Bill Nelson (the only statewide elected Democrat in Florida who has helped vote in unpopular Obama programs like the stimulus and ObamaCare) couldn't make sense of giving the face of the Cuban dictatorship a U.S. visa.

For a White House that criticizes the press for focusing on the trivial, it might help if its top mouth piece had more of a clue about an issue of real substance that matters to a sizable group of citizens in the nation's largest swing state. So it might not be that Obama's administration forgot to read the Castro memo -- it might not care.

Anyway, here's the transcript:

Clark: “Last week the State Department issued a visa and Mariela Castro, Raul Castro’s daughter, visited and created quite a stir. There was one in 2002. Were you taken aback by that, and do you know if the President had any talks with any of the Democratic critics of that decision?”

Carney: “I don’t know. I don’t know that he did, but you know I think, I don’t have any additional comment beyond what others have said on that matter. I think the State Department took those questions because it’s a Visa issue.”

Clark: “And her endorsement of the President?”

Carney: “Uh, again, I wasn’t even aware of that.”

Marco Rubio's Gitmo trip redux

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio visited the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay — setting foot on Cuban soil for the first time in his life — in a solo fact-finding visit on Tuesday that the Cuban-American lawmaker cast as nothing more than typical congressional business as a novice member of the intelligence committee.

“Certainly, it was touching to be able to fly over the island from a distance and see it and know that’s the land that saw your parents and your grandparents born,” Rubio said on his return to Miami in a U.S. Navy C-12 aircraft.

“It’s a place I hope to visit one day soon — a free Cuba, one where the people of Cuba can chose their own leaders and chose their own future.”

Dozens of members of both houses of Congress have made the day trip to the outpost since President George W. Bush set it up soon after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But the trip by Rubio, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 1956, took on a special significance as a dozen reporters thronged his return to ask about where it fit into is role as a potential vice presidential running mate to Mitt Romney.

The senator swatted the question aside, calling it a routine stop as “a member of the intelligence committee,” noting that after not yet two years in the Senate, there are still “a lot of places I need to visit and get up to speed with.”

Rubio noted that he had planned to visit the base in August but canceled because his mother became ill. He declined to answer a question on whether, based on his briefings Tuesday, President Barack Obama was any closer to realizing his ambition in emptying the prison camps.

More here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/29/2822478/sen-marco-rubio-makes-first-visit.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/29/2822478/sen-marco-rubio-makes-first-visit.html#storylink=cpy

Marco Rubio defends immigrant tax-credit crackdown bill

Sen. Marco Rubio just returned from Gitmo and, after the pro-forma hailing of the troops and batting down of the VP shortlister questions from the press, also responded to criticisms from liberals who accuse him of hypocrisy for supporting an immigration proposal meant to help immigrant kids while quietly filing a bill that would require extra documentation for immigrants who apply for a child tax credit.

“I haven’t taken any heat because it’s the logical thing to do. It’s filed publicly. It’s available for everyone to see,” he said.

“The bill’s pretty straightforward. There are people in this country filing for child tax credits for children who don’t even live in the United States and it has been documented and it was never intended for that purpose,” he said. “It’s not even legal to do it now. All this does is say if you don’t have a Social Security Number, and you did file for the tax credit, you have to file paperwork proving that those children who are receiving the tax credit are here in the United States.

“A television station in Indianapolis did pretty extensive coverage of it. And the IRS inspector general says it’s illegal and the loophole should be closed. There’s bipartisan support for it. I know one of my colleagues from the Democratic side has also expressed an interest in it. It’s basically illegal to do it now. All this does is require documentation.”