Well whoopdee-doo! Because the marvel comes when a prominent Democrat says UN-nice things about the Stalinist, mass-murderer and terror-sponsor whose lifelong obsession was the destruction of the U.S. The sensation comes when one of those “diversity” and “civil rights” obsessed Democrats slips-up and slams the regime that jailed and tortured the most and longest-suffering black, gay and female political prisoners in the modern history of the Western Hemisphere.
We’ve often reviewed Democrat love notes to Fidel Castro here at Townhall, but just for fun, stand back while I whip out a few as reminders, and to keep this Karen Bass thing in proper perspective:
“Viva Fidel! Viva Che!” (Two-time candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination Jesse Jackson, bellowing while arm in arm with Fidel Castro himself in 1984.)
"Fidel Castro is very shy and sensitive, I frankly like him and regard him as a friend." (Democrat presidential candidate, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, and “Conscience of the Democrat Party,” George McGovern.)
“Fidel Castro first and foremost is and always has been a committed egalitarian. He wanted a system that provided the basic needs to all. Cuba has superb systems of health care and universal education…We greeted each other as old friends.” (Former President of the United States and official "Elder Statesman” of the Democrat Party, Jimmy Carter.)
Now here’s Democrat New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: “I also think it’s well known that there’s some good things that happened (in Cuba) – for example in health-care.”
“The countries like Cuba or Canada or Russia or a lot of places in this world spend half what we spend per capita and they got better health outcomes than we do,” (deputy chair of the Democrat National Committee Rep. Keith Ellison.)
“Everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world and all of the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro. They forgot that he educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed the society.” (Bernie Sanders)
But the booby prize goes to Democrat “cold-warrior” John F. Kennedy for his (oblique but powerful) justification of what supposedly motivated the (KGB-handled) Castro brothers and Che Guevara:
“I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. (Democrat U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Oct. 24, 1963.)
(All of the above sourced and documented here.)
Since JFK reportedly venerated Winston Churchill I’ll resort to mangling a famous Churchill-ism to make my point: Rarely in the field of political discourse has so much patent rubbish been crammed into so few sentences by an eminent politician.
Kennedy was describing a nation (pre-Castro Cuba) with a higher per capita income than half of Europe, the lowest inflation rate in the Western Hemisphere, the 13th lowest infant-mortality on earth and a huge influx of immigrants. Furthermore, in 1959 U.S. investments in Cuba accounted for only 14 percent of the island’s GNP, and. U.S.-owned companies employed only 9 percent of Cuba’s workforce.
(Kennedy’s blatant parroting of KGB propaganda regarding pre-Castro Cuba thoroughly deconstructed here.)
The crucial issue in the Karen Bass/Cuba matter is not her classically Democratic flattery of Castroism, but whether she became an intelligence asset of the Cuban DGI/KGB during her long association with the Cuban DGI/KGB-created Venceremos Brigades and her frequent red-carpet trips to Cuba.
After all, Bass’ fellow Venceremos Brigadista Gail Reed ended up marrying her DGI/KGB handler Col. Julian Torres Rizzo and has lived in Cuba for the past 40 years. And just a year and a half ago, on yet another of her frequent red-carpet visits to Cuba, Karen Bass was in Havana smilingly posing next to Gail Reed!
Naturally Chris Wallace totally sidestepped this vital issue during his supposedly “hardball” questioning of Bass on Fox News Sunday.
Amidst all the praise his regime traditionally gets from Democrats, who can blame an exasperated Castro for finally saying something like: '…yes, yes, sure, thanks and all that, but, SHOW ME THE MONEY…after all, MONEY TALKS, Bulls**t WALKS!'
And here’s where Obama and his National Security Adviser (and current Biden “short-lister”) Susan Rice stepped up to the plate. Upon taking office in 2009, Obama started signing executive order after executive order opening up an economic lifeline (mostly via remittances and travel expenditures by U.S-based travelers) to the Castro-regime.
Susan Rice served as Obama’s National Security Adviser (what Kissinger was to Nixon) from 2013-2017 when the financial lifeline from the U.S. to the Castro regime really cranked up. Presumably she signed-off (perhaps even initiated or encouraged) Obama’s initiatives to take Cuba off the list of Terror-Sponsoring nations (which opened up the Castro regime’s access to international lending agencies, etc.) to enable mass U.S. travel to Cuba, to enable unlimited remittances from the U.S. to Cuba, and to enable U.S. companies to partner with the Castro-Family-Crime-Military-Syndicate (a euphemism for “Cuba” by the fake news media) in joint hotel management deals, etc.
In fact the annual cash flow from the U.S. to Cuba each of the four years of his second term (while Susan Rice served a National Security Adviser) exceeded what the Soviets used to send annually to the Castro-Family-Crime Syndicate at the height of their sponsorship in the 1970s and '80s. This is no chump change–and much of it was on the dime of the U.S. taxpayer.
The CIA also estimated Soviet subsidies to Cuba during the 1980’s at around $4.5 billion annually.
Now let’s take a look at what Obama’s Cuba “rapprochement” (with Susan Rice as National Security Advisor, and presumably signing-off and boosting the process) enabled:
$3.4 billion in remittances (from the U.S.) Plus $3 to $4 billion in travel expenditures (from U.S. based travelers) and we’re talking–exactly as claimed-- much more money than the $4.5 billion the Russians used to send to Castro annually. And this windfall was made possible thanks to Obama’s executive orders (during which time Susan Rice was National Security Advisor)…..SOME “EMBARGO!”…Some “BLOQUEO!”
The financial lifeline from the U.S. to Cuba (since curbed by the Trump Team) that Obama and his National Security Advisor enabled is detailed and thoroughly documented here.
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