Cuba policy provision could stall Obama appointments

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Tuesday, 03.03.09
Cuba policy provision could stall Obama appointments

BY LESLEY CLARK
[email protected]

WASHINGTON -- New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, who took to the Senate floor Monday night to caution President Barack Obama against signing a spending bill that would relax restrictions against Cuba, has reportedly blocked the nomination of two administration nominees.

The Washington Post reports that the Democrat has placed a ''hold'' on confirming Obama's choices to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the nominee to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Post reported that sources who asked not to be identified ''because they were not authorized to discuss the matter'' said Menendez was not questioning the nominees' credentials, but 'using the holds as leverage to get Senate leaders' attention for a matter related to Cuba.''

A spokesman for Menendez told The Miami Herald Tuesday the office ``does not comment on anonymous holds or rumors of anonymous holds.''

Menendez delivered a scathing critique Monday night of a spending bill that would revise U.S.-Cuba policy by making it easier to travel to the island. He called on Obama to resist signing the bill with the Cuba provision intact.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/breaking-news/story/930211.html

[babylonsister]

1. Menendez is really being an ass over this. This should be a

separate discussion.

[truebrit71]

2. Why? Is communism infectious? Will the embargo FINALLY work this century...

...because it sure as fuck didn't in the LAST century...

The USA looks like a petulant child with it's Cuba policy..Hey America, the rest of the world continues to do business with them...why are you the LAST people to figure that out?

[KansDem]

7. Communist China owns 30% of the US...

American corporations fell all over themselves to get into Vietnam after we lost over 58,000 troops there (I see "Made in Vietnam" clothes in retail stores all the time here).

But, how many Americans have been killed in Cuba? Zero.
And I doubt Cuba owns enough (if any) of the US to influence its policies.

So why the embargo? :shrug:

It's just plain silly! (And this from someone who used to do "duck and cover" drills in elementary school).

[KamaAina]

9. Well, not zero, exactly

a hundred or so at the Bay of Pigs.

Then again, we were trying to invade their country. And it's still a drop in the bucket compared to the 'Nam.

[KansDem]

10. Oh, well, yes...there was the Bay of Pigs...

And also the four Cuban-Americans shot down and killed while flying over Havana and dropping leaflets in 1996, so we could say "a hundred and four or so..." but then again, these leaflet droppers were violating Cuban air space...

So perhaps we could say zero Americans killed in Cuba except for those invading its sovereignty or violating its airspace...

Maybe we ought to stay out of its bays and airspace?

[ReliantJ]

12. Yeah, our plans to make his beard fall off

leaves us at an embarrassing disadvantage. We're waiting for Raul I guess... lol

[harun]

3. Wikipedia says his parents left Cuba because of dislike of the Batista's

Someone remind him the Batista's have been out of power for a while now.

[T Wolf]

4. With "friends" like that, who needs enemies? What is this piece of shit doing in the

Democratic party?

Like a former friend, he is probably pissed that his upper-class family had to flee Cuba when Batista was deposed by the Cuban people.

Most of those "refugees" fled in chartered airplanes, forced to leave their servants behind. Fuck them.

[Judi Lynn]

5. I hope Menendez will go down in flames because of this idiotic move against the President.

His group has NEVER represented the majority view in this country on Cuba matters. Dead wrong for this asshole to try to hijack this legislation.

We can expect this from the Cuban reactionary, thug a-holes in Miami, but by god NEVER from a Democrat, even a Cuban "exile" Democrat.

I hope he gets buried by blowback from this obnoxious, imperious, undemocratic maneuver against the public will.

[harmonicon]

6. what a dick

[Peace Patriot]

8. Likely getting booty from the Miami mafia. Someone should look into it. nt

[Mr. Sparkle]

11. I hope the Obama administration does not let him hijack our Cuban policy.

Harry Reid may have to take his boxing gloves out of retirement ! :o

[Judi Lynn]

13. Good news update: Sen. Martinez tries to halt new Cuba rules

Sen. Martinez tries to halt new Cuba rules

By Wes Allison, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Wednesday, March 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — Two Cuban-American members of the U.S. Senate are trying to block a major spending bill because it would ease family travel and other restrictions on Cuba, though it appears unlikely they can stop it.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., have railed against language in a $410-billion spending bill that would reverse President George W. Bush's 2004 executive order allowing Cuban-Americans to visit immediate family on the island just once every three years, instead of annually, and limiting how much money — called remittances — they could send relatives there.

The changes also would allow Cuba to buy food from U.S. farmers on credit and again allow the United States to send medicine to Cuba.

On the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, Martinez said the changes would "allow the Cuban government to receive unlimited remittances while asking the Cuban government to do nothing . . . (and) would provide the regime with an extra revenue of cash and would help maintain repressive policies."

Cuban-Americans have complained the restrictions prevent them from visiting sick relatives and attending family funerals. Florida's other senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, supports the changes outlined in the bill.

More:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/article980949.ece

[Mika]

14. As I've said all along...

There's too much campaign fundraising at stake here. Both the pro and con factions (which are a mix of Rs and Ds on both sides of the sanctions) reap too much campaign funding to end this cash cow.

NO ONE in congress is really honestly interested in ending the sanctions (except maybe Dennis Kucinich), because when you have a "democracy" like the USA's that relies on private campaign funding, maintaining policies that are good for the campaign coffers is in the financial interests of parties on both sides. The US's Cuban embargo is one such in-yer-face example.

Status quo rules.

[Judi Lynn]

16. I heard only a couple of days ago Cuban organizations poured over $750,000 into the last election.

A lot of it was dumped into national campaigns.

Whole lot of influence buying STILL going on.

[Mika]

15. From a Miami Herald report..

{Bold is mine}

Change on travel to Cuba upsets Senate Democrat
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/931456.html

Senate President Harry Reid said the provisions won't be removed. The current legislation that funds the federal government expires Saturday, and Reid is hoping to send Obama the same bill the House passed last week.

''We're not going to be able to change at this stage unless there's enough votes,'' Reid said. ``But I'm happy to work with those people that are concerned about Cuba.''

Obama promised on the campaign trail to relax travel restrictions to allow Cuban Americans to visit family on the island. But Menendez, who was born in New York after his parents left Cuba, implored Obama Monday not to sign the bill.

''If the omnibus bill is signed by the president as is,'' Menendez warned, ``he will be extending a hand while the Castro regime maintains its iron-handed clenched fist.''

Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez echoed the remarks, saying the legislation fails to require Cuba to change its behavior.

What world does Bob Menendez live in?

How long will this ridiculous cold war era language continue to influence American politics?

[Judi Lynn]

17. Unbelievable audactity from this worm (gusano): Cuba bill opens rift between Obama, N.J. senator

Posted on Wed, Mar. 04, 2009
Cuba bill opens rift between Obama, N.J. senator
BY LESLEY CLARK

A bill that would ease restrictions on travel to Cuba has opened a rift between President Barack Obama and the Senate's only Cuban American Democrat.

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez -- who reportedly is blocking two presidential nominees to protest the change to U.S.-Cuba policy contained in a massive spending bill -- refused Tuesday to discuss the ''holds'' that were first reported in the Washington Post. But he told The Miami Herald that he was disappointed Obama hadn't raised objections to the change in Cuba policy.

''The White House says they had nothing to do with it, but it's quite amazing,'' said Menendez. ``I'm sure if we were making significant foreign policy changes about our policy toward Venezuela, or Israel or Africa, the administration would be up in arms about having foreign policy changes made without their input.''

The provision was tucked into a $410 billion spending bill that keeps the federal government running through September, leaving little room for debate, Menendez said.

''The bottom line is, it's a horrid process to start going down the road on,'' he said. ``It means a handful of members can change the foreign policy of the United States and the president is bound to keep the government open and signs it and now he's got foreign policy changes he didn't engage in and the didn't engage in.''

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/931063.html

His grimy little group of extremists has been responsible for maintaining a constant history of terrorism against Cubans, including kidnappings, small armed groups picking off people on the land from boats in the water, killing fishermen, forrays onto the island to murder Cubans, poisoning livestock, burning crops, bombings of restaurants, hotels, the grotesque Cubana airliner mid-air bombing and murders of 73 people, including children, the entire Cuban fencing team, and medical students from Guyana, not to mention the persistant, non-ceasing activism controlling ALL of American policy regarding Cuba since 1959, and the constant drain of tens of millions of dollars ANNUALLY by his very small exile group.

(Don't even mention the wild extortion going on through the Cuban Adjustment Act which extends a wide variety of free, instant attractions to Cubans who make the effort to get here, and arrive under their own steam, or through smugglers: instant legal status, no fear of deportment, free instant green card, social security, food stamps, US-taxpayer-financed Section 8 housing, welfare, medical treatment, even financial assistance for education. Just imagine what would happen if these benefits were freely given to OTHER immigrant groups, including people from brutally poor countries like Haiti, or brutally violent countries like Colombia.)

Robert Menendez must be wild with righteous indignation over someone attempting to pass legislation regarding Cuba without consulting him. (He expects us to forget ALL the legislation ennacted against Cuba, even to the extent of forbidding companies in other countries to do business with Cuba, as well, pulled off slick as a whistle by the Cuban American legislators and their lackies in Washington, like Jesse Helms, Dan Burton, Tom DeLay.)

[Judi Lynn]

18. Cuban American National Foundation (lobbying group) official released by captors in Panama.

Cuban-American businessman freed from captors in Panama after being held nearly a year

By KATHIA MARTINEZ | Associated Press Writer
9:04 PM EST, March 3, 2009

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Kidnappers have released a Cuban-American businessman tied to an influential anti-Castro organization after holding him for nearly a year in Panama's jungle, family and officials said Tuesday.

Cecilio Padron, 67, appeared unharmed after being dropped off along a highway that headed toward Darien, a jungle-covered province near the Colombian border, Panamanian Government and Justice Minister Dilio Arcia told RPC radio.

~snip~
Cecilio Padron is still listed as head of the board of directors of the Cuban American National Foundation, said organization spokeswoman Camila Gallardo. The foundation is a politically influential organization in Florida lobbying for U.S. pressure on the government of Fidel and Raul Castro.

Padron was kidnapped April 4, 2008, from an upscale neighborhood in Panama City, where he had lived for several years. In May, Panamanian officials said one of Padron's sons in the United States received a phone call from someone asking for a ransom.

More:
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-panama-cuban,0,6873691.story