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The news of Palin has rocked Miami. The pro-republican Cuban-American community here is going crazy! They love her and are energized. Florida will go to the Republicans once again this election cycle.

Posted at http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=22916 hipelayne Presidential Member = >1000 Posts Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Atlanta Posts: 1,358 Poster Rank: #59 A powerful message from someone who's "been there!" I just got this from the Confluence. Does this sound familiar This will be considered off-topic — but it isn’t. I thought I’d share this letter which was sent to the Editor of the Times-Dispatch by a gentlemen who escaped Cuba in the 1960’s. His words come from the experience of believing in someone, without taking the time to know who they really are, and the consequences that followed: Subject: Celebration From...

In search of someone - anyone - on this planet who is not in love with Barack Obama, I am in the banquet hall of a Cuban restaurant in the Miami suburbs, and there are dozens of men and women around me and they are hollering "McCain! McCain! Sí McCain!" A man shouts out in Spanish that I am a political reporter from Canada visiting South Florida. He asks for a show of hands declaring presidential preference. The result: John McCain, about 50; Mr. Obama, two. And the room is just beginning to fill. Soon there will be 250 people...

On the surface, political life in Cuban Miami seems unchanged. Little Havana is still partly a Disney version of a displaced Cuba and partly a genuine community hub, where families who have long since left for suburbia still come for nostalgic weekend lunches. At the Versailles Restaurant, the community newspapers preaching no compromise with Castro are all that are on offer. For almost four decades, the Versailles has been an obligatory stop for Washington politicians courting the Cuban-American community, visits that, as photographs in the restaurant attest, have often involved putting on a white guayabera, the four-pocket dress shirt that...

If there were ever a reason that illustrates why newspapers are dying and the mainstream media isn't trusted by many people, this story from the Babalu blog is a perfect example. Last February, your humble correspondent posted a Newsbusters blog about the studied incuriosity of the MSM over the Che Guevara flag hanging in the office of Barack Obama campaign volunteer, Maria Isabel. This flag was discovered when Houston Fox News 26 reported on the opening of an Obama campaign office as you can see in this video. This caused a big flap at the time but it was reported almost exclusively in the blogosphere as the MSM, with a notable...

Summoning a time of political upheaval in Miami, a great-uncle of Elián González plans Friday to publicly denounce two Barack Obama campaign advisors who helped send the boy back to his father in Cuba eight years ago. One day before the expected Democratic nominee addresses a conference of mayors in Miami, Delfín González will hold a 1 p.m. news conference outside the Little Havana home where Elián lived with relatives for several months in 2000. Earlier this week, CNN reported that Elián, now 14 years old, has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. Obama was an Illinois lawmaker during the 2000...

Not long ago, Florida Republican Chairman Jim Greer pledged that the party and its allies will refrain from injecting race into the presidential contest in the state. "There will be no one connected with the Republican Party of Florida who will utilize any issue related to race, because it's not relevant," Greer told reporters gathered in his Tallahassee office. But that is exactly what a Democratic congressional candidate says the party did last week when it fired out an e-mail press release bearing a doctored photo purportedly showing Fidel Castro endorsing Barack Obama.

MIAMI - Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama yesterday accused President Bush of complicity in the rise of his most fervent nemesis in Latin America through what Obama called a "negligent" US foreign policy that has created a void for anti-American leaders to extend their reach in the region. more stories like this Obama says his Cuba policy is based on 'Libertad' Obama promises Cuba policy shift, attacks McCain Obama courts Cuban-American voters in Florida In Florida, McCain challenges Obama's position on Cuba Obama develops McCain strategy before nomination "No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chávez have stepped into this...

Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday for his criticism of the Cuban government this week, saying McCain had shown why he finished near the bottom of his class at West Point. In his latest newspaper column, Castro also attacked President George W. Bush for his speech on Wednesday announcing that U.S. citizens would be allowed to send cell phones to Cuba. "A deluge of speeches and lies they directed at Cuba," Castro said in a column published in Communist Party newspaper Granma. "How far they are from knowing Cuba and its people."

Decision '08: John McCain's big speech on Latin America Tuesday projects a leadership that will go down well in our southern hemisphere. Instead of focusing on dictators, he aims to shun tyrants and champion people.Zeroing in first on democracy's biggest black hole, McCain in Miami warned the Castro oligarchy that "Cuba is destined to be free" and he didn't intend to stand passively nor buttress the Castro regime on its last legs by inviting them to tea in the White House. Winds of change are coming. "I will provide more material assistance and moral support to the courageous human rights...

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has drawn criticism from some Cuban Americans who disagree with his policy on negotiating with U.S. enemies. The Washington Times reported Sunday that the Illinois senator will likely have to defend his policy this week when he meets with the Cuban American National Foundation, in his first campaign stop in Florida in nine months. Obama has said that if elected president he would hold direct talks with hostile governments, including Cuba's communist leaders. In addition to holding talks with Cuban leaders including President Raul Castro, Obama has said if elected he would relax restrictions on...

Cuban emigres living out rags-to-riches fairytale with colt Gayego Dr. Jose Prieto, left, and Carlos Juelle pose with Gayego shortly after they purchased him at the 2006 Keeneland September yearling sale. Carlos A. Juelle Mike Brunker Horse racing editor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Few, if any, have traveled a more improbable and circuitous route to the Kentucky Derby than Carlos Juelle and Jose Prieto. The Cuban émigrés journey to the owners’ suite at Churchill Downs traces back nearly four decades to hard-labor camps and a maximum security prison run by Fidel Castro’s communist regime. Juelle, a 68-year-old semi-retired business executive...

Carmen Peláez is a liberal with a deep laugh and a great sense of the absurd. All of those qualities are tested when she encounters fellow New Yorkers who still admire Fidel Castro. Ms. Peláez, a Cuban-American actress, was born in this country and raised in Miami. She came to New York in 1993 to study acting. In the mid-’90s, she traveled to Cuba to explore the world of her great-aunt, Amelia Peláez, a noted painter who died in 1968. All those experiences pulse through “Rum & Coke,” a one-woman show in which she channels relatives on both sides of...

Mitt Romney donned a guayabera for a Sweetwater rally, trading in his standard blue-suit, white-shirt ensemble for the traditional Cuban attire. Romney told the crowd of roughly 150 at the Jorge Mas Canosa youth center that he ''would never give money to Fidel Castro'' -- prompting a swell of cheers. But Adela Rodriguez, 70, a retired bookkeeper who left Cuba 39 years ago, said she's a Romney supporter for other reasons. She said he seemed like a ''moral person,'' but more importantly, she said: ``I like his agenda for the economy.'' Romney has seized on the economy as his strong...

SWEETWATER, Fla.—A buzz went through the press corps when Mitt Romney showed up at a Cuban-American community center here on the outskirts of Miami this morning. “What is he wearing?” one reporter asked. Could it really be? Yup. The normally buttoned down Mr. Romney, whose uniform on the trail is invariably a starched white shirt, navy blue suit and tie, occasionally interrupted by a button-down without a tie, or sweater with khakis, was wearing a guayabera. Guayaberas, of course, are linen shirts popular in Latin America, traditional in Cuba with four pockets and two vertical pleats that legend has...

Peace activists in pink dresses and tiaras demanded the arrest of anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles Saturday, but aborted plans for a demonstration in Little Havana after Carriles supporters rushed their vehicle.The six activists, of the Codepink anti-war group, had planned to speak to reporters outside the landmark Versailles restaurant to publicize their campaign against Carriles-- a former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. However they were met by some 200 irate Cuban-Americans who consider Carriles a champion of freedom. Some ran at the activists' truck as they arrived, tearing off...

To the (large) extent that the Armenian-American lobby ginned up support for a pointless and destructive resolution condemning sins of the Ottoman Empire, it advanced its own causes at the expense of larger American interests. ... To the (huge and obvious) extent that the Cuban-American lobby has muscled the United States into its small-minded and punitive embargo of Castro's Cuba these last 45 years, it has advanced its own causes at the expense of larger American interests. ... - To the (ongoing) extent that AIPAC -- the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby" -- is...

WASHINGTON - President Bush, ever pushing for a Cuba without Fidel Castro, wants allies around the world to offer money and political support so the island can be ready to transform itself. It is Bush's vision for Cuban regime change: providing help on the outside, prodding change on the inside. Seizing on Castro's fading health as a rare opening, Bush was to ask other nations Wednesday to help Cuba become a free society. In remarks prepared for delivery at the State Department — his first standalone address on Cuba in four years — Bush looks to the day when Castro...

Trying to jump-start his stalled trade agenda, President Bush pleaded with lawmakers on Friday to pass free trade pacts with four nations, and warned against protectionism taking root in America. In Miami, a city known as the "gateway to the Americas," Bush urged Congress to approve free trade agreements with Peru, Panama and Colombia in Latin America plus another with South Korea. The deals face uphill battles given five consecutive years of record U.S. trade deficits that critics say played a major role in the loss of more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since Bush took office in 2001. Bush...

Hero. Rebel. Revolutionary. These are words one often hears in association with Ernesto Che Guevara. But they are not words you will often hear in Miami where many people see Che Guevara as a brutal guerrilla who brought Cuba nothing but misery with his communist ideals. One of those anti-Che voices in Miami belongs to Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban-born former CIA agent who was part of the mission of CIA operatives and Bolivian army forces that captured and killed Che Guevara in October 1967. Forty years on, how does he feel about the role he played in ending the life...

AP) The father of a 5-year-old Cuban girl at the center of an international custody battle did not abandon or neglect her, so he should get her back, a judge ruled Thursday. Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen said she would not immediately return the girl to her father, Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, who wants to take her back to Cuba. The girl went into foster care after her mother brought her to the U.S. in 2005 and then attempted suicide days before Christmas. She has been living with foster parents in Miami for the past 18 months and they want...

Fred Thompson blasted Fidel Castro today as he campaigned in a morning Miami, Florida event. Here is a good synopsis of his morning stop: Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson ripped Cuban leader Fidel Castro and liberals who praise the Communist country's health care system during a morning campaign swing through Little Havana. Thompson, on the second day of a three-day bus tour of Florida, appeared on a Spanish-language Radio Mambi morning show, then visited the Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho. Both are familiar stops for any candidate hoping to woo conservative Cuban-American voters. "Let there be no mistake about it....

vote Campaiging in Florida today, Fred Thompson vowed to continue the embargo on Cuba as President, and even said he would have his Attorney General look into a possible indictment of Castro's brother Raul for the shooting down of two "Brothers to the Rescue" planes in 1996: "Thompson, appearing at the Little Havana eatery in front of a mostly Cuban-American crowd, also said he would maintain the embargo on Cuba if he were elected president." ''Castro is a dictator; he's the head of state-sponsored terrorism............

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson blamed Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday for the publicity surrounding his remark suggesting Cuban immigrants are bringing suitcase bombs to the United States. When asked by Florida's WTVJ about the perception in the Cuban-American community about his comments, Thompson replied, "I think that was a Hillary Clinton news release that she put out or a statement that she made trying to capitalize on something when she knew better." During a trip to South Carolina in June, Thompson was talking about illegal immigration from Cuba and elsewhere and said, "I don't imagine they're coming...

For nearly a decade, Republican presidential candidates have counted on Florida's Cuban-American community to win the state and, with it, the presidency. This year's hopefuls are again making the rounds in Little Havana and on Miami's Spanish-language radio, mixing criticism of Fidel Castro's Cuban regime with scathing comments about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But this once fail-safe plan has become more risky as Florida's increasingly diverse Hispanic community no longer guarantees a monolithic vote. Of the state's estimated 3 million Hispanics, Cubans represent a third. Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, more traditionally Democratic voters, make up another third, and Central and...

CANCUN, Mexico — The body of a Cuban-American who was under investigation in a migrant smuggling case was found riddled with bullets along a road outside this Caribbean resort, authorities said Tuesday. Luis Lazaro Lara Morejon, who was wearing only white Bermuda shorts, was found handcuffed and blindfolded with duct tape late Monday night. He had been shot at least 10 times, said Didier Vazquez, the director of the judicial police in Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located. Vazquez said Mexican police were investigating whether Lara was part of a Cuban-American group that smuggled Cubans from southern Mexico to...

Cuba's late Marxist revolutionary, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, is experiencing something of a revival these days. His fiery-eyed visage and rock-star good looks, immortalized in an iconic snapshot by photographer Alberto Korda in 1961, seem to epitomize the youthful idealism of revolution, rebellion and free-spiritedness.

I was at the swearing ceremony and it was very moving. This guy was smiling like he just won the lottery. He was happy and wanted to share it with the world. As you can see on the video, he was very proud and shared his thought in spanish.

Florida: Jose Temprana, a 105-year-old man of Cuban birth, has gained his citizenship in the United States. He arrived on a humanitarian visa aged 93 after spending 30 years in prison for smuggling weapons for a failed US-backed insurrection attempt. Temprana has been married twice and currently has a girlfriend. He was a lobster fisherman/sponge diver by trade and fathered eight children. Locally he is known as 'El Nino' (The Boy) because of his spirit and vitality. "I feel different, satisfied, very happy. It was worth the wait. I've wanted ... it since I was 8 or 10 years old,"...

The woman has no political instincts. * Clinton slams GOP rival's Cuba remark LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Taking a swipe at a potential GOP presidential rival, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday criticized Fred Thompson for suggesting illegal Cuban immigrants pose a terrorist threat "I was appalled when one of the people running for or about to run for the Republican nomination talked about Cuban refugees as potential terrorists," Clinton told Hispanic elected officials. "Apparently he doesn't have a lot of experience in Florida or anywhere else, and doesn't know a lot of Cuban-Americans." * Of course you're appalled,...

MIAMI (AP) -- A 105-year-old native of Cuba has finally had his wish fulfilled. He's become a U.S. citizen. Jose Temprana celebrated by sipping champagne with friends at the Hispanic Community Center in Miami Saturday. Temprana was born in September 1901. He worked as a sponge diver and lobster fisherman. He had eight children with his first wife, who died giving birth to the youngest. His second wife died in 2002. In 1964, he was imprisoned in Cuba for smuggling weapons from the United States into the island for an insurrection against Fidel Castro. He wasn't released until he was...

I've seen a fair amount a buzz around the blogosphere about Fred Thompson's supposed gaffe about Cubans being terrorists. It's hard to believe that usually intelligent, "read behind the headline bloggers" would fall for this ruse. The fact is, the quote was grossly taken out of context, and Fred Thompson implied no such thing. To date, Fred's Cuba credentials look a lot better than the rest of the candidates, from either party. The good news about Fred is, he's not talking from a speech writers printout, but from his own convictions and knowledge. Here's the text of what he really...

MIAMI, Fla. -- Jose "El Nino" Temprana, a 105-year-old former Cuban political prisoner, became a U.S. citizen Friday. Temprana took the oath of citizenship in Miami early Friday. -snip- During the Cuban Revolution, he and three of his sons opposed Fidel Castro and were imprisoned in 1964 for 30 years. Following his sentence, he moved to Miami and has been free for the past 12 years. In the same ceremony Friday, Edgar Renteria of the 1997 World Series champions Florida Marlins also became a U.S. citizen. Renteria is now a shortstop for the Atlanta Braves.

“For a while, it didn’t look like Washington was going to listen to us regarding real immigration reform. Thankfully, we’ve been spared a serious mistake, but I wonder if things would have turned out the way they did without the work done by the bloggers, talk radio and the American people. Rush, Hannity, Laura Ingraham, RedState, Powerline, Pajamas Media and a lot of others have done a great job. Take that, Fairness Doctrine. “Anybody who knows my track record or has read some of the things I’ve written about the Cuban-American community knows where I stand. While the communist dictatorship...

United States President George W. Bush said Monday that it is the Cuban citizens living in the island who will decide the end of the "tyrannical situation". Speaking with journalists at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is spending a week-and-a-half vacation, Bush said that "our desire is for the Cuban people to be able to choose their own form of government". "Once the people of Cuba decide the form of government, then Cuban-Americans can take an interest in that country and address the issues of property confiscation: but first things first. The Cuban people need to decide the...

Some suggest that Republicans may have a challenge firing up their Cuban-American base once Fidel Castro is out of the picture. Fidel Castro's exit from the world stage -- an eventuality that gained renewed urgency with his temporary relinquishing of presidential power last week -- has the potential to shake up decades of Republican dominance among Cuban-American voters. South Florida's large Cuban-American population has long been one of the party's most loyal constituencies, rallied to political events by cries of ``Cuba sí, Castro no.'' At least eight in 10 of Florida's nearly half-million Cuban-American voters backed President Bush in 2000,...

Charging Fidel Castro with the deaths of his relatives, Cuban-American Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell declared last night: “I hope he does die.” “Castro killed members of my family,” Lowell told the Herald before last night’s game against the Cleveland Indians at Fenway. Some news reports have suggested the Cuban dictator, nearly 80, is gravely ill after undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding, even as Cuban news media say he is recovering. He has handed power to his brother, Raul Castro. Lowell, 32, recounted the trauma the Castro regime has caused his family. “My dad had to pack up his...

WASHINGTON - With Cuban President Fidel Castro ailing, the Bush administration said the United States is prepared to support a democratic transition on the island. Castro, who underwent surgery for an intestinal problem, surrendered power temporarily to his brother, Raul, No. 2 in the chain of command. White House press secretary Tony Snow said there are no plans to reach out to Raul Castro. "Raul Castro's attempt to impose himself on the Cuban people is much the same as what his brother did," Snow said. "The one thing that this president has talked about from the very beginning is his...

Cuban exiles reacted with exuberance at the news that Fidel Castro had temporarily ceded power to his brother late Monday night, taking to the streets, dancing and honking their car horns in celebration that decades of dictatorship in Cuba was coming to an end. But today, the initial joy turned mostly to uncertainty as Cubans paused and considered the unanswered questions: why did Mr. Castro himself not appear to announce his illness? Was he alive or dead? What would the future bring for families with loved ones in Cuban prisons, or for those with executed relatives in the grave?

I havent been posting much about the immigration bill that has unfortunately just been passed by the Senate as there are many other, more well informed folks commenting and editorializing on it in the blogosphere already. I do, however, have to state publicly, here and now, that I am extremely disappointed in our "Republican" Cuban-American Senator from Florida Mel Martinez. He voted "yea" for the amnesty bill, which included a last minute ammendment to said bill which states: (b) CONSULTATION REQUIREMENT.--Consultations between United States and Mexican authorities at the federal, state, and local levels concerning the construction of additional fencing...

Imagine an exalted academic, author and Washington political advisor spouting–and for public consumption– any of the following phrases: “those truly repellent New York Jews,” or “those truly repellent Detroit Negroes,” or “those truly repellent Los Angeles Mexicans”Imagine the media hullabaloo, the orgy of indignant squawking, the affected frowns, the finger pointing, the gasps. Trent Lott, Earl Butz, Jimmy The Greek and John Rocker all caught hell for less. Would a “Professor Emeritus” at prestigious Georgetown University utter such insensitive blasphemies in a media interview? One has, the eminent professor Norman Birnbaum ( PHD, Harvard) whose credentials truly stagger. Besides his...

Supporters of an old anti-Castro rebellion are having difficulties getting asylum in the United States because the Patriot Act labels them terrorists. WASHINGTON - Four decades ago, thousands of Cubans took to the Escambray mountains in a CIA-backed guerrilla war against Fidel Castro. Today, U.S. law brands them as terrorists.

CHAMBLEE, Ga. -- Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, the first Cuban-American elected to the U.S. Senate, said Friday he was teaming up with the only black member of the chamber to introduce an immigration enforcement bill. Martinez, a Republican, said he expected to announce the details of the bill later this month with Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. "Immigration is something that we got to get fixed," Martinez told a crowd of Georgia's Hispanic government and business leaders in the northern Atlanta suburb. "First and foremost, we've got to do border enforcement," he said. "Then we got to have a...

Millionaire rock and roller, Carlos Santana, was immensely proud of the elegant Che Guevara shirt he wore to the last Academy Awards. (For details see Che at the Oscars) But by wearing the face of a mass-murderer on his torso Mr Santana provoked nary a raised eyebrow, a snide comment, nor a peep of protest from the Mainstream Media. Well, imagine Andy Garcia or Gloria Estefan wearing an elegantly embroidered Augusto Pinochet (who killed far fewer than Che) T-shirt to the Oscars or Grammys. Imagine the squawking.

The Diaz-Balarts were out of the country when Castro took over and after Castro burned their house to the ground they never returned, getting that message loud and clear. Living in Florida, Rafael was a leader of the Castro opposition, and taught his sons to love freedom through word and deed. The commitment runs so deep in the Diaz-Balart blood that speaking of their Cuba and other tyrannies, like China, Lincoln said in a 2003 interview with the National Review: "I feel almost embarrassed for the human race that we just sit here and accept regimes like that." As members...

MIAMI -- Rafael L. Diaz-Balart, a Cuban exile politician who fervently opposed Cuban President Fidel Castro -- his former brother-in-law -- and was father to two U.S. congressmen, died Friday. He was 79. Diaz-Balart died at his home in Key Biscayne after a long battle with leukemia, a family spokesman said. Diaz-Balart was an attorney and politician who rose to the position of majority leader in Cuba's House of Representatives before Castro seized power in 1959. After leaving Cuba, Diaz-Balart founded the White Rose Party that was dedicated to fighting Castro's government and also was a diplomat for Costa Rica...

MIAMI - Rafael L. Diaz-Balart, a Cuban exile politician who fervently opposed Cuban President Fidel Castro and fathered two U.S. congressmen, died Friday after a long battle with leukemia. He was 79. Diaz-Balart died at his home in Key Biscayne with his four sons - Rafael, Jose and U.S. Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart - wife Mercedes and her daughter, Belen, by his side, a family spokesman said. A funeral mass is scheduled for Saturday at St. John Bosco Catholic Church in Miami. "His death constitutes another reason to continue to fight for Cuba's freedom, which was the ideal of...

When Isidoro Vilarino fled Cuba with his wife and two young children in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, he was like most of the other 125,000 refugees - destitute, with few job skills and only the clothes on his back. Vilarino had worked on his father's livestock farm in the rural mountain town of Buey Arriba, near where Fidel Castro based his revolution to take over the country in the 1950s. Life was comfortable until Castro nationalized Cuban land and his father's farm in the early 1960s. Vilarino had to quit school and get a job working in a bar as...

When my Aunt Karina told me that her sister Eva was coming from Cuba on a visit, I was apprehensive. Why is Aunt Eva coming to Miami? After all, she has been a member of the Cuban Communist Party for more than 40 years; was graduated from the University of Havana as an economist; and espouses Communist Party ideology, claiming that it was much better than the United States, which she has called ``imperialistic garbage.'' When in 1990 Cuba lost the Soviet subsidies that maintained the Cuban economy in an artificial bubble of tolerable existence, Aunt Eva started making phone...

Thirty-eight years after Ernesto "Che" Guevara's death, the revolutionary and his familiar black beret, solemn face and burning eyes remain a surprisingly resilient fashion statement, reports the New Jersey Record. Guevara's image, as drawn by illustrator Alberto Korda, still appears on caps, T-shirts, posters, key rings, books and documentaries. But his status as a cultural icon has grown even bigger after the release of the 2004 film about a young Guevara: "The Motorcycle Diaries." Which is perplexing to those who knew the man - or simply know what he did. In contrast with the image of the idealistic Latin American...