Pro-Embargo candidates sweep in Florida

2016 US Election Florida: Cuban Americans repudiated Obama Cuba policy and Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton should sue the Pro-Cuba trade lobby for fraud. They used push polls to peddle the false narrative that the Cuban-American community had changed and that backing an opening with the Castro dictatorship would not harm her electoral prospects. They should have seen it coming. On September 28, 2016 this blog reported:

"Cuba, so far this election cycle has not been high on the radar, but with this announcement the Obama Administration's controversial Cuba policy will be debated and at a time when polls indicate that the race in Florida is tightening the Cuban American vote could be decisive in swinging the state and its 29 electoral votes."

Let there be no doubt that this election in Florida was a rejection of Obama's Cuba policy consider the following:

Democratic candidate Joe Garcia running in 26th Congressional District that favored Democrats lost to Republican Carlos Curbelo by 11 points. Garcia had been a high profile champion of President Obama's failed and troubling Cuba policy.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen defeated anti-embargo candidate Scott Furhman by ten points: 55% to 45% in the 27th Congressional District.

Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart defeated Democratic candidate Dr. Alina Valdes who supports Obama's Cuba policy by 62% to 38% in the 25th Congressional District.

Statewide Marco Rubio, who has been a severe critic of President Obama's Cuba policy defeated anti-embargo candidate Patrick Murphy 52% to 45% and was returned to the U.S. Senate.

Incidentally neither Carlos Curbelo or Ileana Ros-Lehtinen campaigned for Donald Trump. 

However Donald Trump who initially received 33% of the Cuban American vote while supporting Obama's Cuba policy until mid September 2016 found that when he rejected Obama's Cuba policy and promised repeatedly to back the aspirations of Cubans and Venezuelans to live in freedom his numbers went up to 52% and were probably even higher on election day.

The outcome of the Presidential election in the United States is still being determined tonight but the repudiation of Obama's Cuba policy legacy was felt today with Cuban Americans voting across Florida. 

The question asked by the Wall Street Journal: "Will Obama’s Cuba Policy Lose Florida for Clinton?" has been answered and the answer is yes.

AP Florida State wire reported the following on the exit polls:

"There was a significant divide between Cuban voters and non-Cuban Hispanics in Florida, the state with the nation's third-largest Hispanic population. Trump led with Cuban voters, but more almost three-quarters of non-Cuban Hispanics preferred Clinton. Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric has turned off many Hispanics, but Trump appealed to Cuban voters in September by saying he would reverse the deal Democratic President Barack Obama made with Cuba to reopen diplomatic relations - unless Cuba expands political freedoms."

Anti-embargo lobbyists and pollsters who pitched the lie to Democratic candidates in Florida did Donald Trump a solid that was part of the puzzle that gave him Florida. Mike Fernandez didn't campaign for Donald Trump but with the misrepresentation of the Cuban American community by some of its wealthy members did more to help the Republican nominee than the money showered on Hillary Clinton. 

U.S. Cuba Policy: Pay attention to what they do not what they say

Secretary Kerry gives the Castro regime a pass on human rights violations

Secretary of State John Kerry said that human rights was at the top of the Cuba agenda, and that they would not give Cuba a pass on human rights but proceeded to not invite Cuban human rights defenders to the flag raising ceremony at the Embassy. The State Department argued that it was a government to government affair and that there was not enough space to accommodate the dissidents. In an interview with Andres Oppenheimer, the Secretary of State offered an expanded explanation:

“Rather than have people sitting in a chair, at a ceremony that is fundamentally government to government, with very limited space, I will meet with them...and exchange views.”

However, the State Department did accommodate "entrepreneurs and Cuban American activists" to fly down with Kerry and his official delegation with a planeload of them. The "activists" support the Obama administration's Cuba policy and are advocates of lifting sanctions on the dictatorship and some like former Congressman Joe Garcia had received financial contributions from supporters of the Castro regime in his previous campaigns that became a source of controversy and contributed to the one term congressman not being re-elected.

Furthermore, Secretary Kerry did not object to celebrating the embassy opening with Cuban spies who had been expelled from the United States under previous Administrations due to their espionage activities against the United States of America.  

Despite the plane load of lobbyists and businessmen and the Cuban spies CNN anchor Jake Tapper in a tweet observed that there was plenty of space to have invited Cuban dissidents. This indicates that it was not space considerations but bending over backwards to accommodate the Castro dictatorship that led to the decision not to invite human rights defenders. This combined with the shabby treatment of Rosa María Payá last month by State Department spokesman John Kirby and the message is clear and journalist Andres Oppenheimer laid it out:

Kerry’s trip to Havana didn’t break new ground on human rights even symbolically, and in effect hurt Cuba’s fledgling internal opposition by making it look irrelevant in the eyes of many Cubans.  Could it be that Obama is so eager to visit Cuba before he finishes his term — to go down in history as the U.S. president who “opened” Cuba, much as Nixon “opened” China — that he is willing to sacrifice the human rights cause? Could it be that he is so eager for a foreign policy victory that he is willing to abandon a long-standing U.S. policy of moral support to pro-democracy activists? 

 The Obama administration's Cuba policy did not begin on December 17, 2014  but first enunciated in his 2009 inaugural address when the President spoke of extending a hand to old adversaries. This went beyond rhetoric in 2009 and again in 2011 with the loosening of sanctions against the Castro regime. During the past six years of the Obama administration the Castro regime has seized the opportunity to do away with opposition leaders that could have been alternatives of national leadership to the current regime while projecting itself further into Latin America.  The dictatorship understands, as did the Chinese before, that while the United States will pay lip service to human rights concerns when it comes to concrete actions this administration holds economic engagement with the dictatorship as a higher priority then human rights.

If you doubt this then just asked yourself then why there was room to fly down a plane load of business men and lobbyists for doing business with the dictatorship but no room for human rights defenders at the flag raising ceremony?  The answer is brutally simple. Business and engagement with the dictatorship in Cuba is the priority not human rights or the freedom of the Cuban people.

The lesson is clear when dealing with the Obama administration: Pay attention to what they do and not what they say.

Feds charge Joe Garcia's ex-chief of staff of running ringer candidate: Providing some context

"While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself." - Douglas Horton  

Joe Garcia and David Rivera face off in a debate. Both mired in scandal

Three years ago in the blog entry, "Deja Vu at The Miami Herald?" I wrote that "it will be interesting to look back six years from now and try to understand what was actually going on with the benefit of hindsight."  In half that time the picture that emerges smashes the initial press narrative from 2012.

Lit piece from alleged 2010 Garcia ringer candidate Roly Arrojo

The press, at first, portrayed Joe Garcia as an innocent victim, but what emerges now are two party nominees that played fast and loose with campaign finance laws and ethical conduct by placing ringers into political races to split their adversary's vote. At the time this blog also reported on a criminal conspiracy that was being ignored in the mainstream press:

In 2010 Roly Arrojo , a candidate billed as a Tea Party conservative candidate was a registered democrat that some say Joe Garcia placed into the general election to peel of votes from the Republican nominee because their was a business relationship between Garcia's campaign manager and the Democrat turned Tea Party candidate.

Today's news in The Miami Herald confirms the above speculation from 2012:

Federal prosecutors on Friday accused former Miami Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia’s ex-chief of staff of secretly financing a ringer tea-party candidate in 2010 to draw votes away from a Republican rival — an illegal scheme that inspired a more serious copycat case two years later.  Jeffrey Garcia was charged with conspiracy to give a campaign contribution of less than $25,000, a misdemeanor offense. Prosecutors say Garcia, no relation to the former congressman, put up the $10,440 qualifying fee for the shadow candidate, Jose Rolando “Roly” Arrojo, to pose as a GOP primary challenger to David Rivera.  Arrojo was also charged Friday with the same misdemeanor.

Three years later, it now appears that David Rivera, who is accused of being behind the Lamar Sternad candidacy in the 2012 democratic primary, was retaliating against Joe Garcia for placing a "tea party" candidate in the 2010 general election to split the conservative vote.

What has been left out, so far, in the current reporting is the absentee ballot fraud committed by the Joe Garcia campaign in 2012 that led to a criminal investigation. The Rivera  campaign has not been accused or associated with ballot fraud.

 Jeffrey Garcia, 41, Congressman Garcia's chief of staff, spent 90 days in jail as part of a plea deal he reached with the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office, CBS4 reported.  Two other staffers were also impacted. "The Miami-Dade state attorney’s office served search warrants at the homes of Joe Garcia’s communications director; and  his 2012 campaign manager seeking electronic equipment such as computers."

Jeffrey Garcia, Former Chief of Staff for Joe Garcia

South Dade Matters followed this story closely at the time and reported in greater detail on the role of Former Congressman Joe Garcia's staffers in the controversy, and in the July 3, 2013 blog entry Another Garcia Shoe Drops quoted The Miami Herald where the Congressman's staffer had been placed on unpaid administrative leave last month, days after Miami-Dade prosecutors and police raided his cousin’s home in connection with the scheme to request ballots online for nearly 500 unsuspecting voters in the Aug. 14 Democratic primary.

What is shocking is that former Congressman Joe Garcia, who left office under an ethical cloud, and apparently a criminal investigation, has now been hired as a senior vice president in a Miami-based bank.

Three years from now it will be interesting to look back at this story, and with the benefit of hindsight, see more clearly behind the smoke and mirrors at the underlying criminal acts in these political scandals from 2010 and 2012.  Hopefully this mess will serve as a cautionary example to others not to repeat these practices.

The Terrible Precedent Set By Congressman Joe Garcia

The past two years have been turbulent ones for Congressman Joe Garcia and his staff. An absentee ballot scandal in 2012 led his chief of staff, long time friend and confidante Jeff Garcia to a ninety day prison sentence as part of a plea agreement. Other staffers were being investigated by authorities and in order to avoid possible legal entanglements have agreed through their attorneys to extend their statute of limitations.  At the same time officials are reported to be looking into the role the 2010 Joe Garcia congressional campaign played in the placing of a tea party ringer candidate into the race in order to divide up the Republican vote. Despite all of this and Congressman Garcia hiring of a criminal defense attorney, David Markus, he claims to no longer be under investigation but news accounts say different. This is not the Florida 26th Congressional District's first rodeo, but when candidates get desperate in a heated campaign they do things sometimes that harm others and later come back to haunt them.

Joe Garcia did something on October 27, 2014 that no Cuban-American congressperson has ever done by placing a Cuban dissident in a paid political advertisement as an endorsement to advance his own candidacy. The campaign's press release was clear:  "Today, the Joe Garcia for Congress campaign announced that ... Guillermo “El Coco” Fariñas, ... had declared his support for Representative Joe Garcia. Unfortunately, it also turns out to not to be true or as one blogger declared "bogus."  Fariñas in a statement issued today stated:

"I, at no time of the advertisement in question appear asking for a vote for either of the two candidates in particular, therefore, it is clear that I am  not meddling in said elections."

Over twitter "El Coco" stated:

"The statements emitted about Joe García are a personal criteria and not a Political Campaign. The same opinion I would have said about his opponent."

At the same time another dissident, while supporting Fariñas's right to his opinion expressed grave concerns about Joe Garcia as:

"a person who is promoting what the people do not need to be free ... the policy promoted by Joe Garcia lamentably seeks closeness with the regime and not the opposition ... and that is what a great part of the Cuban people and opposition think."

Unlike other members of the Cuban-American congressional delegation Joe Garcia is the only one who has accepted campaign donations from avowed supporters of the Castro dictatorship. The FEC reports show [Francisco Aruca of Marazul] donated $5,000 to Garcia in 2012 and attorney Ira Kurzban, who legally represents Fidel Castro and his interests in the United States gave $3,700 to Garcia. There are others who on camera declare their support and sympathy for Fidel Castro and give thousands to Joe Garcia's campaign such as John Cabañas whose video appears at the top of the page.

Until October 27, 2014 no member of congress had engaged in using a dissident to advance their political campaigns in a paid political advertisement. This sets a terrible precedent that I hope is never repeated. If in the future candidates are dividing dissidents in Cuba over partisan races in the United States and relegating the cause of Cuban freedom to a talking point then historians will look back to the Joe Garcia for Congress and their actions on October 27, 2014 and say this is where it started, and it will be a great shame.

I will be voting for Carlos Curbelo in this election and recommend all fair minded people who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, etc. to do the same and demonstrate that this course of action is a vote loser and hopefully stop this becoming a trend.

Ira Kurzban, who legally represents the abuser himself, Fidel Castro, and his interests in the United States and gave $3,700 in donations. - See more at: http://www.politicalcortadito.com/2014/07/29/what-hypocrite-joe-garcia-didnt-tell-cuban-dissident-he-met/#sthash.Ne7aUiKI.dpuf

Ira Kurzban, who legally represents the abuser himself, Fidel Castro, and his interests in the United States and gave $3,700 in donations. - See more at: http://www.politicalcortadito.com/2014/07/29/what-hypocrite-joe-garcia-didnt-tell-cuban-dissident-he-met/#sthash.Ne7aUiKI.dpufattorney Ira Kurzban, who legally represents the abuser himself, Fidel Castro, and his interests in the United States and gave $3,700 in donations.