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With all the good and real news in a town like Miami, Miami Herald reporter Alfonso Chardy seems to have turned public relations agent for Chris Simmons and his PR agent in Miami, Ana Margarita Martinez. You will remember Ms. Martinez as the ex-wife of Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque, who allegedly belonged to the Wasp Cuban spy ring discovered by the FBI in 1998.

A note which appeared in Chardy’s Cuban Colada blog announced Simmons’ appearance on television and radio in the next few days to plug his book and up coming movie being written by them and to be produced by Ms. Martinez. The money Ms. Martinez will use, I suppose, will come from monies she collected when she sued the Cuban government for being defrauded by her husband the alleged spy.

This type of mush plays well in Little Havana. And I guess times are tough — even for Miami Herald reporters.

Alvaro F. Fernandez

By Al Kamen
Taken from the Washington Post

Many Americans worry these days about the state of the economy. Some
are concerned about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still others fret
about environmental matters.

But this is a big country, with enough important problems for just
about everyone to ponder. Take this July 8 e-mail from the office of
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.).

“As Members of the Cuba Democracy Caucus,” the message to various Hill
aides said, “your bosses are cordially invited to a meeting with
officials from the State Department and Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Officials from State and Treasury will include Bisa Williams, Coordinator for State’s Office of Cuban Affairs, and Barbara Hammerle,
OFAC Deputy Director. The meeting is at 10:15 AM this Thursday, July 10
in 2244 Rayburn HOB. However, we may need to move to a larger room
depending on expected attendance. I will keep you posted of any room
changes.”

What’s the trouble? “This meeting was scheduled at the request of
Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart,” the invite said, “to discuss the very
troubling granting of a Treasury/OFAC license to a little league team
to travel to Cuba in August. I have included links to two newspaper
articles that provide details on the issue.”

Click here to keep reading

A new analysis of congressional races puts U.S. Rep. Lincoln
Diaz-Balart - the last Republican with any territory in Broward - in
possible jeopardy in November’s election.

The widely watched ranking of key congressional races assembled by the Rothenberg Political Report
puts Diaz-Balart, the Miami Republican with about one-fifth of his
district in southwest Broward, on the list of incumbents who might have
problems.

The district is listed as “lean Republican.” But that’s not entirely good news for Diaz-Balart.

Raul Martinez Interview

From the Associated PressAmong the record number of voters expected to cast ballots this fall
may be an increase from an often-invisible population — the homeless.

Advocacy groups and shelters across the country have stepped up efforts
to register the 3.5 million people who drift in and out of homelessness
in the United States.

“Just because we’re homeless or low income doesn’t mean we don’t have
an opinion,” said Estelle Bearcub, who plans to vote for Barack Obama.

“It’s our right to vote. And it’s our right to have our opinion count, too.”

The homeless have sometimes struggled to participate in the political
process, in large part because of requirements in Washington and 39
other states that voters list a mailing address.

Volunteers encourage transient voters to use the address of the shelter
or soup kitchen they frequent in order to receive an absentee ballot.
In states that require a physical address, voters can list a park or
intersection where they sleep.

State Rep. David Rivera from Florida, in a Miami television program, said that the brothers Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in June of this year had sent a letter to Florida Governor Charlie Crist asking that he sign Florida Law 1310 — a law that makes it even more difficult for Cubans to travel to visit and unite with their families in Cuba.

Crist signed the law. At this moment this law lives in a sort of legal limbo until the middle of September when a federal judge will hear the lawsuit presented against 1310.

Before the Edmundo Garcia radio audience during one of his nightly programs, Rep. Rivera refused to admit the existence of this letter after having made the accusation. Garcia, a journalist, decided to search for it and Progreso Weekly obtained the copy from Garcia.

To date not a word has been heard from Lincoln, Mario and Ileana regarding this new assault against the Cuban family. We believe that it is time for the members of Congress to determine — publicly — if they are in favor or against the Cuban family.

4,000-plus dead Americans in Iraq… and few pictures

Taken from The New York Times

BAGHDAD — The case of a freelance photographer in Iraq who was barred from covering the Marines
after he posted photos on the Internet of several of them dead has
underscored what some journalists say is a growing effort by the
American military to control graphic images from the war.

Zoriah Miller, the photographer who took images of marines killed in
a June 26 suicide attack and posted them on his Web site, was
subsequently forbidden to work in Marine Corps-controlled areas of the
country. Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the Marine commander in Iraq, is now
seeking to have Mr. Miller barred from all United States military
facilities throughout the world. Mr. Miller has since left Iraq.

If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to
journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out
nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite
extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths,
searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic
photographs of dead American soldiers.

It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to
weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the
Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of
families and the anger of comrades still in the field.

While the Bush administration faced criticism for overt political
manipulation in not permitting photos of flag-draped coffins, the issue
is more emotional on the battlefield.

Click to read

Florida International University (FIU) has had to cut off numerous professors, employees and staff persons the past few months. An expected downturn in the Florida economy saw the republican-led legislature put the burden on education, social services, health care and other vital state services, while sparing dozens of sales tax exempt businesses whose lobbyists are the hit of the January to May session in Tallahassee.

On the House side this continual destruction of the educational and social system as we know it and begun by former Governor Jeb Bush was led by Speaker Marco Rubio, the first-ever Cuban American to serve in that powerful post. Rubio and his lieutenants in the Capitol spared no one except, of course, their good friends in ‘Big Business.’

Yet, today’s Miami Herald reports that Rubio will soon start a “part-time” job at FIU which will pay him $60,000 a year. He will serve at the Metropolitan Center — which he helped cut funding to this year. Still, republican loving Center Director Dario Moreno gushed with glee knowing he was getting a “political star”, as FIU President Modesto Maidique called Rubio.

Payback? We would have to ask President Maidique…

Anyway, I don’t get it. This guy ravages your budget, makes you lay-off hundreds of your workers and you reward him with a work-very-little-for $60K a year.

Anybody have Maidique’s number? I need one of thos cushy jobs…

House Speaker Marco Rubio

I have quietly followed the Florida Marlins’ ride this year. It’s been fun and somewhat strange. In Miami, we have major league baseball’s lowest payroll, somewhere around $20-plus million for the entire 25-man squad. This bargain basement group happens to be playing some of the best baseball (except for their fielding) and leading the majors in home runs as a team (which makes up for the errors on the field). I like them; they’re playing the game because they like to play it, not necessarily for the millions they’re making. Surely, that will change. But I’m enjoying the ride so far.

Compare that to the New York Yankees with a team payroll north of $200 million and a lineup with names like Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano, Mariano Rivera — all-stars at almost every position. Yet both teams have comparable records this season. And don’t be surprised to see the Marlins make it to the offseason while the highly paid Yanks sit home and stew during the playoffs — again.

But let me get to my point…

It’s about the stadium the powers that be in Miami want to build on the old Orange Bowl site. (The old football stadium where Miami’s Super Bowl teams played three decades ago no longer stands. The wrecking ball took to her earlier this year. A large space now sits in the middle of Miami’s Little Havana. See video at the bottom.) Marlins management, including the previous regimes, for years has clamored for a new baseball stadium with retractable roof in the heart of Miami. They claim it will help draw crowds; Miami’s rain and stifling heat the reason they give for their lousy crowds. I agree with the idea of a new stadium. It would be wonderful although I must say that as old and rusty as the Orange Bowl was, I will miss her…

It would be wonderful to visit the new stadium and watch these Marlins take on the Yankees in a modern day version of David and Goliath where a roof can be closed if it happens to rain the night I visit the stadium. That’s all well and good.

The problem? Marlins management wants the public to help pay to build the stadium. That’s right. A team owner whose bank account must hover close to a billion wants us (who can hardly afford $4.50 a gallon of gas while paying very high taxes on our homes and wondering if our child’s school can afford to stay open!) to pay for it. Most of it, anyway. And that’s where my enthusiasm for the Marlins has come a screeching halt.

Show me a good reason why I should pay for this stadium

Which brings me to a group called Jobs With Justice. They do good work and work directly with the community. Now if the city and county, along with a judge trying to rule on the future of the stadium, would listen to these folks, who knows, we might be able to reach some kind of compromise.

I say compromise because I feel we are doomed. One way or another we will be paying for this stadium. It’s in the cards. There is too much money involved and the majority of our elected officials are on board.

So here’s what JWJ proposes: build it, as long as you put the people from the neighborhood where it will be built to work. That’s right, Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood has a high rate of unemployment. Many abled men and women who can work, but can’t find a job, live around the stadium. So, says JWJ, if we’re going to build this monster in the middle of their neighborhood with OUR tax dollars, put that money back into the community: hire the community to build it.

I would rather not finance a stadium for a group of rich men. It looks like we may not have a choice. Like I said, it’s in the tea leaves. So, if this is the case, JWJ’s idea is not a bad one.

Put the community to work with our tax dollars!
Alvaro F. Fernandez

Miami Orange Bowl & Future Marlins Stadium P.1

Miami Orange Bowl & Future Marlins Stadium P.1

Diaz-Balart Family Circus