Cuban baseball might be a terrorist plot!

This morning, on NPR's Weekend Edition, Tom Goldman reported that the Treasury Department has relented on its opposition to allowing the Cuban baseball team to play at the World Baseball Classic. In Goldman's piece, Lincoln Diaz-Balart likened Treasury's decision to allow the Cubans to participate to letting a South African team play during Apartheid. Senator Mel Martinez said also, "We would not have thought of playing with an apartheid South African team." Boy, are these guys on the same pagina or what? Diaz-Balart was quoted in the NYT saying his protest over this issue was, "a small price to pay to remind the world of the oppression of the Cuban people for 47 years." Yes, of course, because after so many years of futility no one cares anymore. In a development that must be really messing with the heads of the Anti-Castro-types the NYT says, "Administration officials said the reversal of the position came after the president became directly involved. 'The president wanted to see the matter resolved in a positive way,' said Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council. 'Our concerns were making sure that no money was going to the Castro regime, and that the World Baseball Classic would not be used by the regime for espionage. We believe those concerns have been addressed.'"

Ramon Saul Sanchez, made a good point saying that, "We can't play the same game Castro plays. I would like to see Castro give visas to exiled athletes who want to play in Cuba. That doesn't happen because he puts up barriers. But we shouldn't be putting up those same barriers. Sports should be free." Wow, what a dirty commie, if I were him I'd get somebody to start my car for me from now on.

I'm so sick of Lincoln Diaz-Balart along with his brother in Congress, Mario, and the other punk brother Jose (Now calling himself: "JD"), on the radio, who shamelessly exploit the issue of Cuba for their own benefit and everybody is getting a little tired of it, except for the little old Abuelas on Calle Ocho who keep voting them into office. Lincoln and Mario's districts are some of the poorest in the country, but as long as they continue saying "the monster" no one notices that they really don't do anything for their constituents.

I really don't see what good punishing a bunch of Cuban baseball players will do or how that will hasten the demise of "the monster's" noxious regime. If we're going to keep Cuban athletes from going around to the world to compete, why didn't we do the same to East German, Soviet and Chinese athletes back in the cold war? And why don't we do something about the Iranians if they're so hell bend on wiping Israel "off the map?" Steven Weisman in the NYT reported yesterday that, "administration officials have maintained that permitting Iranian athletes or musicians to travel to the West should be encouraged, to help open Iran to outside influences, encourage defections and lead eventually to internal demands for change." So, why not Cuban musicians and athletes, why are they being signaled out?

See, we have to engage Cuba, not isolate it. Despite Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's (Congress' dumbest member) ridiculous remark that forty years of failed sanctions against Castro just meant we had to give it a little longer, most American's and Cuban-Americans are ready to drop the embargo and do business with Fidel. If Lincoln Diaz-Balart is really serious about hurting Castro he should push for a total ban on Cuban-Americans sending remittances to their family members in Cuba, which gives Fidel a billion dollars of hard American currency every year. But, oh no, the Abualas would never stand for that, so just keep giving lip service to the embargo and getting automatically returned to congress every two years. Hope pathetic and hypocritical! (Or maybe he could ask his uncle just to lighten up.)

Lincoln Diaz-Balart employs crack-heads.

Yes, it's true, I actually met one. Despite brother Mario's strong stance against drug use by poor women trying to find work from the Florida job service back in his days in that state's senate, it seems big brother is little more tolerant of crack smokers, as long as their white and Republican.

Back a few years ago, my girl friend and I were on our way home in the early morning hours, after some drinks at a Capital Hill dive, and stopped in to the 7-11 on 8th SE to get some cigarettes. Outside was a cab blaring his horn and inside was a clean cut white kid talking to one of the denizens of that area, which was a little odd, but not so much for that particular 7-11 at that hour of the night. Since it was too late to pick up the D-8 to go home, we went outside and asked the hack blowing his horn if he could take us home and just at that moment out comes the kid and gets in the cab. Since the driver was totally pissed off at this kid---who had made him wait for ten minutes---he said we could share the fair and we headed up Pennsylvania Ave. towards the Hill. Along the way we found out this kid had been making a crack deal in the 7-11 and that's what took him so long and then he mentioned he was a staffer for a Republican congressman from Florida. Being from Florida, I immediately started firing off names trying to find out who he worked for, but he wouldn't say. When I got to the Diaz-Balarts, he lost his cool. I said, "common, tell me, is it Mario or Lincoln? It's Lincoln, right?" but before I could find out for sure the kid told the driver to let him out, blocks away from here he said he was going. Naturally, being a good Republican, he stiffed the driver on the tip and we wound up having to make up the difference because we felt bad for the guy. So you can kind of figure out where Lincoln's crazy ideas come from, if this is an example of the people who work for him. (Or the guy was just on crack and made the whole thing up.)