Funding for Cuba programs stalled in Congress

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2011
Funding for Cuba programs stalled in Congress
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
[e-mail]

An Obama administration effort to spend another $20 million on Cuba democracy programs has been blocked for two months amid bitter clashes over policy and personalities.

Words like “backstabber” and “communist dupe” have been thrown about and the issue is littered with leaks and counter-leaks about alleged wrongdoings.

Sen. John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is offering to lift the “hold” he put on the money April 1 if the amount is cut to $15 million, according to a note sent by his committee staff to the State Department Friday. El Nuevo Herald obtained a copy.

Committee spokesman Fred Jones declined to comment on the note but said, “We are continuing discussions with the administration in an effort to make sure these programs are effective and meeting real objectives.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/08/2257727/funding-for-cuba-programs-stalled.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. CUBA - US Senator John Kerry Opposes USAID Funds for Anti-Cuba activity .

CUBA - US Senator John Kerry Opposes USAID Funds for Anti-Cuba activity .
Saturday, 02 April 2011 04:10

HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 1 (acn) John Kerry, Chairman of the influential US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said on Friday that he will oppose the approval of a 20-million dollar budget presented by the government to promote actions against Cuba.

They should consult the Congress on this issue, points out a communique by the legislator, who advocates the full revision of these anti-Cuban programs, which have cost US contributors –it assures- over 150 million dollars.

The Statement from Kerry, after receiving notification that the U.S. Agency for International Development intends to spend another $20 million for “democracy promotion” programs in Cuba, says “We all hope the Cuban people achieve greater freedom and prosperity in the future consistent with their aspirations, and I have applauded the Administration’s commitment to expand people-to-people contact between our two countries.

There is no evidence, however, that the ‘democracy promotion’ programs, which have cost the U.S. taxpayer more than $150 million so far, are helping the Cuban people. Nor have they achieved much more than provoking the Cuban government to arrest a U.S. government contractor who was distributing satellite communication sets to Cuban contacts.

More:
http://caricomnewsnetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2925:cuba-us-senator-opposed-to-funds-for-anti-cuban-activity&catid=82:latin-a-central-america&Itemid=457

[lib2DaBone]

2. $20 Million to Cuba.. and then cut Social Security? Huh?

If they want to help Cuba.. why not just lift the blockade? How 'bout spending that $20 Million at home on a jobs program?

[harmonicon]

6. this is because they don't want to help Cuba, they want to destroy it.

Of course they could help Cuba as easily as you suggest, but they won't ever do that.

[No Elephants]

3. I don't get it. Kerry says he put a hold on the $20 million because there's no evidence

the programs are effective---but he'll lift the hold if the amount is cut to $15 million?

So...according to Kerry, spending $15 million on ineffective programs is fine, but another $5 million makes it unacceptable?

:wtf:

What's really going on?

[Judi Lynn]

5. Apparently it got too vicious, he got threats, and he compromised!

This kind of crap has been happening in the House and in the Senate since the "first wave" exiles got here right after the US-supported puppet monster dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown and fled, fearing a major ass-kicking.

Here's what happened to a perfectly FINE Democratic Congressman from Colorado, Rep. David Skaggs when he went up against the exilio by daring to request ending the funding to the US propaganda radio (and tv) beamed at Cuba, which has cost the US taxpayers a minimum of well over $20,000,000.00 per YEAR for a VERY long time.

From an earlier post, information baed on material discovered researching:

David Skaggs had done an investigation of Radio/TV Marti, the propganda stations broadcasting from Miami, to the tune of around $30,000,000.00 per year, programmed, staffed, run by Cuban "exiles" and found they are worthless, since Cubans get American tv and radio stations just fine, thank you, on their own radio and tv sets, contrary to what the Cuban "exile" reacitionaries in Florida claim as the reason to beam their propaganda in there.

The "exiles" claim that that is the only way they can get news about the U.S. On the contrary, visitors to Cuba can even get American radio on their Walkmen, walking on the streets of Cuba.

So David Skaggs tried to get these programs kicked out to save the taxpayers money. Lincoln Diaz-Balart approached him, told him he would take everything he considered worth-while from him if he continued. He continued, and Lincoln Diaz-Balart started fighting him tooth and toenail, started sabotaging the programs for Colorado David Skaggs was trying to implement, and then, after the dust cleared, got money from the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami and took out adds in the Colorado newspapers telling them that David Skaggs had lost those programs for Colorado. David Skaggs was not re-elected. He has said that if you go against one of these guys, you're not going to have a very good day.

Here's a reference:
Dealing from principle --- ex-Representative Skaggs

However, in 1993, former Representative David Skaggs (D-CO), in an attempt to trim unnecessary budgetary spending targeted for the Martis, was able to convince his House brethren to block funding for the two operations --- a measure which did not meet the same success in the Senate, where it was inevitably defeated. Skaggs paid a high price for his bold move, and came under withering fire from anti-Havana hardliners. Marti’s congressional supporters, led by none other than treasury plunderer Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart responded with a stark warning that revenge would be exacted on those who might threaten the continuation of the Marti operation, making an example of Skaggs by attempting to slash federal funding for projects in his home district. However, Skaggs refused to give up the fight, and he continued his campaign against the project, in particular its television component, until he retired in 1998. Skaggs admitted, "You know that if you kick the Cuba issue, you're going to have a bad day.” As a result of his personal experience, the Miami New Times reported in a November 12, 1998 article that Skaggs bitterly expressed outrage at the “corruption of United States policy that is inherent in our Cuba policy,” explaining, “by corruption I mean the untoward influence of a relatively small segment of the population in Florida and the money that small segment of the population brings to bear, and how it distorts the policy choices this government makes.”

More:
http://cubajournal.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html

~ ~ ~ ~

Mr. Diaz-Balart Goes to Washington
When an unsuspecting Colorado congressman tries to cut funding to Radio and TV Martí, the freshman lawmaker gives a taste of exile politics, Miami-style
By Jim DeFede
Published: July 14, 1993

As fourth-term Democratic Rep. David Skaggs walked to the podium on the evening of July 1, he was still bristling over the events of the past few hours. Cuban American politics had arrived with a vengeance in the halls of Congress, and it had just cost Skaggs's Colorado district $23 million in federal funds.

It had been a long, unpleasant day.
Right then, at a few minutes past 7:00 p.m., the House floor was empty; most members of Congress were already on their way home for the Fourth of July recess. But Skaggs was going to speak anyway, for the record. And standing a few feet away at a second lectern was Rep. Jose Serrano, a fellow Democrat from the South Bronx who was there to lend his moral support.

The trouble had arisen several weeks before. In a tough budget year, as a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee -- specifically, of the subcommittee that oversees funding for the departments of commerce, justice, and state -- Skaggs had been looking for programs to cut from the 1994 budget. In Radio Martí and TV Martí, he believed he had found two prime candidates. And indeed, in mid-June, at Skaggs's urging, the subcommittee had voted to cut all funding for both programs, a total of nearly $28 million.

A week later, though, when the trimmed budget went to the full Appropriations Committee, Miami Rep. Carrie Meek successfully argued to allow $8.7 million in funding for Radio Martí, in spite of Skaggs's objections. Before the appropriations bill went before the entire House of Representatives for consideration, Meek, along with fellow Miami representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, had met with Skaggs to persuade him not to do anything that would endanger Radio Martí. But as Meek had told the congressional newspaper Roll Call, Skaggs was unwilling to compromise; he promised to fight against Radio Martí funding on the House floor.

More:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1993-07-14/news/mr-diaz-balart-goes-to-washington/

DU thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3182568&mesg_id=3182665



The guy in the top photo with Fulgencio Batista is Rafael Diaz-Balart,
whose sister, Mirna, married Fidel Castro. They became divorced after
she learned he had a mistress.

Rafael Diaz-Balart, was the attorney in Cuba for United Fruit, which
became Chiquita, then the Speaker of the House, then a member of
Batista's Cabinet.



Here he is flanked by the two Masferrer brothers. One of
then, in the glasses, was a senator, a newspaper publisher,
and the founder and head of a death squad, "Masferrer's Tigers."



This is his son from Florida, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

[George Wythe]

4. "An Obama administration effort to spend another $20 million on Cuba"

Our government needs learn how to handle their present responsibilities before taking on any more.

Don't you wish that they would just fix the economy and balance the goddamn budget!

[Peace Patriot]

7. If President Kerry would give me $15 million, I'd bring some democracy to the U.S.

with a campaign to dump the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines into 'Boston Harbor' (a REAL 'Boston Tea Party'). These machines --now 80% controlled by one, private, far rightwing* corporation--ES&S, which bought out Diebold--were first deployed on a national scale in 2004, and were one of two key factors in the phony 're-election' of Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld to keep the war and the war profiteering going and to set up the final looting of the U.S. Treasury. The other factor was the purging of black voters from the voting rolls in key states. The 'TRADE SECRET' election theft system, though it had been quickly spread far and wide, between '02 and '04, was not fully in place by '04 but it was nevertheless useful in several close-call states. It is now universal. NO ONE gets elected without the approval of the far rightwing and its allies.

The Anthrax Congress appropriated $3.9 billion for this election theft system in Oct. '02--the same month as the Iraq War Resolution--because, during that same period, nearly 60% of Americans opposed the invasion of Iraq (Feb. 03, all polls) and a new form of guaranteed control of the American people was needed, for that war and for other purposes.

Virtually every Democrat in Congress voted FOR privatized, 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting with NO audit/recount controls--not their first, but certainly their worst, betrayal of the American people and of democracy itself. Now ALL states use these election theft machines. (NY, the last holdout, caved last year.) Half the states do NO AUDIT AT ALL (comparison of paper ballots to machine results) and the other half do only a miserably inadequate 1% audit. Thus, NO elected official in this country can prove that he or she was actually elected and the bad guys--fascist billionaires (one of which was the initial funder of ES&S--Howard Ahmanson*), transglobal corporations with no loyalty to the people of the U.S., and war profiteers--can play our system like a piano, with deep crescendos of evil like the Bush junta, or, when needed, pretty melodies like Obama's "change we can believe in," with no chance of serious reform ever again (no FDR could be elected now) because the piano players are in charge, not us.

President Kerry surely knows this, but has--like so many others--out of corruption or fear--chosen to be played.

$15 million or $20 million for "democracy" in Cuba--or, overall, $BILLIONS, if you add up all of our tax dollars being used to try to destroy democracy and social justice in Latin America (for instance, $7 BILLION to the Colombia military, notorious for murdering thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, community activists, teachers, journalists, political leftists, peasant farmers and others)--is BULLSHIT. "Democracy" NEVER results from these thefts of our money. Democracy is being created in Latin America DESPITE U.S. opposition to it and DESPITE vast and profligate U.S. government spending to prevent it. What we are really looking at is an OIL WAR PLAN on the Pentagon's Big Dartboard (with Venezuela and Ecuador as the initial targets) combined with mindboggling war profiteering--U.S. military 'contractors' stealing our money and producing death and mayhem or producing absolutely nothing.

And we, the people of the U.S., have absolutely no control over any of this. How did that happen?

Yes, filthy campaign money and filthy corporate media are big factors, but that is not enough to subdue a democracy-minded people, as the Latin Americans have shown (--with leftist governments elected in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, and yesterday in Peru! --as well as in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and, until the U.S. supported rightwing coup, in Honduras). They have worse media than we do, and BILLIONS of our tax dollars, as well as corporate/private money, being funneled to fascist causes throughout the region, yet leftists can win in Latin America, because they've done a decade of good civic work on their election systems and they DON'T HAVE "TRADE SECRET" vote counting.

That is the difference: counting the votes in the PUBLIC VENUE. They have it. We've lost it. And our own party leaders--who should have been shouting from the rooftops about this theft of our democracy-- this unbelievable violation of the very premise of democracy--quietly went along, and some of them, like Kerry, probably think they're doing some good by trying to shave $5 million from the anti-Castro Miami mafia and its 'contractors' in the midst of an OBVIOUSLY ES&S (s)elected Scumbag Congress. Some are deluded. Some are fearful. Many are corrupt.

It's got to come from below--from the people. It's got to start with the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. And we aren't going to get ANY help from our own government in restoring democracy here in the U.S. Believe me, that is the last thing they want to see, here or anywhere else.

---------

*(Far rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson--the initial funder and major investor in ES&S--also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things. THAT is who is 'counting' virtually ALL of our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code--code that the public is forbidden to review--with virtually no audit/recount controls. Fascists! You want to know how a war that most Americans opposed from the start could proceed for eight years, how a regime that tortures prisoners could be re-elected when 64% of the people opposed torture "under any circumstances" (NYT poll, May '04), how this completely unrepresentative, scumbag Congress could have gotten into power, how Social Security and Medicare could be on the chopping block, how an asshole like Ryan could be running Wisconsin, how the most progressive state in the union, California, could "pass" an anti-gay referendum? You need look no further than the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. THAT is why and THAT is how. Fascists have gained EASY, FAST, INVISIBLE control of the election results themselves.)

[Judi Lynn]

8. Amen. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had democracy here, ourselves? Right now it's only a word. n/t