Going to Cuba—most blog activity suspended until after July 5

By SJ Otto

I am leaving for Cuba this Saturday. I will be travelling with Pastors for Peace. For that reason my blogs will probably not be in use for the next two weeks. I do not know what the situation for WIFY or computer use is while I will be in Cuba. I will be there for two weeks.

I will have plenty to post when I return. But as to what I will post while I am there, I have no idea.

As a socialist, on this site a democratic socialist, this will be the chance of a lifetime. I will get to see, first hand, what it is like in a real Marxist-Leninist socialist country. There are very few of these left. Vietnam, Laos and China come to mind as Marxist-Leninist. They all have mixed economies. They are not actual full-scale Marxist-Leninist countries. Cuba may not be a fully socialist Marxist-Leninist country, but they are just about the only country that is dedicated to creating such a system.[1]

We do have socialist nations, such as Venezuela, who are busy standing up to US-imperialism. But they are not following the pure Marxist-Leninist ideology. In Nicaragua, where I have actually been, they once had a Marxist revolution. Today a member of the Sandinista Party, Daniel Ortega, holds power, as an elected leader. Today the Sandinistas follow a Democratic Socialist ideology. Despite all of that, our Idiot President Donald Trump has sanctioned the country as if it has the same government as Cuba does.

I may have problems coming back from Cuba, such as losing my souvenirs. That is because the Idiot Trump has turned back the clock to the cold war days to the past and has forbidden US citizens from travelling to Cuba.

This is my chance to see how a truly Marxist-Leninist country actually works. It may be my last time to see that. We never know how long such a revolution will last. While Cuba is not democratic socialist, they are worth defending against US imperialism—a system that does not discriminate against any socialism nation. The US opposes ALL forms of socialism—thanks to the Idiot Trump, democracy does not matter to him and his ilk.

I am looking forward to this trip. I will return about July 5. Soon after that, I will be posting my experience on Otto’s War Room (毛派), The Idiot Factor: Corruption Folly, Counter-culture Journals (文革) and possibly my personal blog, Artsy Fartsy (អាភៀន).

Pix by The Marxist-Leninist - WordPress.com.

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[1] For example, see by Mage, Wohlforth and Robertson, 17 August 1960,    https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/cuba/cuba-mt.html

Fox and conservatives keep a constant barrage of attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

By SJ Otto

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets constant attention from conservatives at Fox (Faux) News. The station and its many conservative supporters have kept up a steady barrage of accusations and insults. I knew conservatives would be on the attack when a democratic socialist, from Democratic Socialists of America, got elected. Not only does she not embrace Fox’s ultra-conservative views, she dares to support socialism. AOC, as they call her, is like the fly in the conservative ointment. Fox, the Republican Party and conservative pundits have had to watch their perfect conservative government/society/culture that they have owned now for the last 30 years contaminated by progressive ideas. Some of their sacred tenants, such as unconditional support for Israel, have been challenged. Up until Bernie Sanders ran for president, the voters have had the choice between far-far-far right-wing Republicans and timid centrist Democrats. There hasn’t been a liberal politician elected president since Lyndon Johnson. Democrats since then have run from the labels “left-wing” or “liberal.”

Now they have an actual democratic socialist in office and they are working overtime to try and discredit her. They have also gone after fellow Democratic newcomer Ilhan Omar with the same lines of attack.

One of their main tactics is to attack what she says with indignation. Their latest attack is on her claim that the U.S. government “is running concentration camps on our southern border.”[1] Fox commentators claimed the comparisons is “obscene, shockingly ignorant, and an insult to the memory of the 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazis.”

The one thing this pundit forgot is that her statement is true. Treatment of people, being put in cages, children taken from their parents and children dying from lack of adequate health care is consider concentration camp treatment. Only people on the far right would be so outraged by such a comparison. And AOC is not the only person to accuse President Donald Trump of being Hitleresque. A lot of people, including myself, have made that comparison.

For the most part AOC has not allowed these people to rattle her. She has refused to apologise to these conservatives for her comments.[2] She was right not to do that. To do otherwise would fall into their traps of trying to make her look insensitive and allowing them to seem right in their attacks.

The next form of attack is the constant attempts to make AOC look uneducated and unintelligent. That latest attack comes from Rush Limbaugh:[3]

“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., may be addicted to attention over her latest controversial comments, or she's "stupid," said conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

"I think she’s just having fun watching people blow up," he said Wednesday on his radio show. "If she does believe it, then she’s so stupid that there’s nothing to do about it."

Quite often conservatives have had authors and various pundits claim they know more about a subject than she does, just because they have written a book on a subject that disagrees with her opinion. For example AOC said of President Ronald Reagan’s legacy, printed in an outfit called Townhall:

“he "pitted" whites against browns and blacks.

"And one perfect example – a perfect example – of how special interests and the powerful have pitted white working class Americans against brown and black working Americans in order to just screw over all working class Americans is Reaganism in the '80s when you started talking about 'welfare queens,'" Ocasio-Cortez said during an interview at the conference. "So you think about this image, 'welfare queens,' and what he [Reagan] was really trying to talk about was – he was painting this photo, he's like painting this really resentful vision of essentially black women who were doing nothing that were sucks on our country, right? And it's the whole tragedy of these comments type thinking where it's like because these one specific group of people that you were already kind of subconsciously prime to resent, you give them a different reason, that's not explicit racism, but still rooted in racist caricature, it gives people a logical, a "logical" reason to say, 'Oh, yeah, no. Toss out the whole safety net.”

Then we are supposed to believe this guy is automatically right because he has written all these books on Reagan.

“To counter that New York Times best selling author Craig Shirley has written numerous books on President Ronald Reagan and his presidency. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Reagan Ranch and is considered one of the best Reagan historians out there. Shirley decided to challenge Ocasio-Cortez on her statements about the Gipper by providing facts about Reagan and his presidency:”

This is a real common tactic they use against her. They act as if Reagan is a hero and that only someone uneducated or just plain unknowledgeable about the “facts” would dare say such things. Reagan is supposed to be a working class hero and that is supposed to be a fact. In fact all of AOC’s attacks on Reagan were quite accurate. He did make fools of America’s working class, especially those who supported him—while he lowered the buying power of America’s working people. He did scapegoat poor people and convinced a lot of working class Americans to blame other working poor Americans for problems conservatives actually created.

AOC has weathered these attacks rather well. Many novice politicians would have thrown in the towel by now, of simply collapsed from their various attacks. She is quite intelligent and has handled her new job with a great deal of professionalism.

It is unfortunate that Fox News and conservative pundits have such a large and powerful media conglomeration. News/opinion outlets as mine are quite small and I have only a few readers. They seem to command millions of ditto heads that hang on their every word.

Still AOC is doing well and outlets as mine will continue to challenge Fox and other conglomerates.

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[1] Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/rabbi-abraham-cooper-ocasio-cortez-is-wrong-to-say-us-operating-concentration-camps-for-illegal-immigrants?fbclid=IwAR1cHKkcBXlZYM-xF1lvwo5rF3kbiNnP4RcAbUL--SS-tF_NsZjrVCeQXXI

[2] Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-says-she-will-never-apologize-blasts-gop-for-focusing-on-concentration-camps-comparison?fbclid=IwAR2CWQU_t66r5KGWWrk1JMAMI6yegvCrvakV498SWMy1OW3xt51Sdt02cmo

[3] Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-either-enjoys-riling-people-with-incendiary-comments-or-shes-just-not-bright-limbaugh

US postage stamps represent the political faction that now runs the country

By SJ Otto

Why would any one put George Herbert Walker Bush on a stamp? Well the obvious answer is that conservative Republicans wanted to honour him. They run the presidency and the Senate, and largely—the Supreme Court. So they can do what they want. Here in Wichita, conservative Republicans renamed the airport after Ike Eisenhower, even though he spent very little time in Wichita or Kansas. He was a Republican even though he was left-wing compared to today’s Republicans. But we have city buildings named after Ronald Reagan, the president who is the most responsible for the far left lunge this country has taken since he was in office. I’m sure we will see Ronald Reagan stamps. soon.

Will there ever come a day when left-wing politicians from Wichita’s past ever get their own stamp? Will they ever get the recognition they deserve?

Earl Browder was a famous Communist Party leader here in Wichita and no one every suggested we put his picture on a stamp. He was a communist. We don’t even put Democrat Party politicians on stamps. In fact, Kansas leaders are pulling such people’s statues out of our US hall of Kansas politicians to replace them with people that a lot of Kansans recognize, such as Eisenhower and Amelia Earhart. Kansas politicians have decided to remove Democrats that took part in founding the state of Kansas with pop culture icons:

“In 1999 Kansas passed a resolution to replace its statue of George W. Glick with one of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and to send a statue of Amelia Earhart to replace the one of John James Ingalls.”

Will there ever come a day, when Democrats, or progressives from Kansas’ past ever get the recognition they deserve?—not as long Republicans keep writing and RE-writing our history.

Tell Trump to dump Barry Myers, rather than let him head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

From Sarah Hogg, Daily Kos:

For a third time, Trump has nominated a non-scientist with questionable ethics, Barry Myers, to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

NOAA is a critical agency that studies physical science, the atmosphere, and the climate. Previous NOAA administrators have been trained and accomplished scientists ranging from geologists to astronauts. Myers is not a scientist but a businessman and the former CEO of AccuWeather, making him grossly unqualified to head the agency. 

Not only is Myers not qualified, he has been on the record calling for the privatization of the National Weather Service, which provides free weather updates to the public and competes with AccuWeather’s business model, highlighting conflict of interest concerns. 

This is ridiculous! Sign and send the petition to your U.S. senators if you agree that we need a scientist and environmental leader at the helm of NOAA, not a businessman.

SIGN AND SEND THE PETITION

In addition to lack of credentials and clear conflict of interest concerns, AccuWeather, under Myers' watch, is mired in sexual harassment and assault allegations. 

Dozens of AccuWeather employees allege “widespread sexual harassment,” which prompted the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to investigate when he was first nominated in 2017. Because employees reported these abuses and the company was aware of allegations, AccuWeather was fined $290,000 by a federal oversight agency after the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs published their findings. 

Now that his nomination has been quickly shuffled through committee and is already up for a Senate floor vote, it is time we tell our Senators that we deserve much better than Barry Myers, an unqualified pro-Trump businessman whose company is under investigation for sexual harassment. 

Sign and send the petition to your U.S. senators: Barry Myers is not qualified to lead NOAA. Please vote against his confirmation. 

Pix by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | Smithsonian Ocean.

Insurance parasites and big pharma are trying to kill health care reform!

By SJ Otto

Big Pharma is making its move to try and kill health care reform. I just got a so called “survey” entitle “2019 National Survey of American Senior Voters on the Democrat “Medicare for all” Plan.” It is conducted by a group calling itself Christian Seniors Association, a part of Traditional Families Coalition, and it was mailed to my father, John Otto, who is now dead.

This is an attempt to reach seniors and I’m sure they are hoping “conservative seniors.”

It doesn’t take long before it is clear what this survey is really for:

“We expect this survey to show Congress that the overwhelming majority of senior voters oppose this “Medicare for All” plan being pushed by liberals- including by every leading Democrat Candidate for President in 2020.”

They list all the people they plan to send this survey to including press and congress people to try and kill Medicare for all. They explained that they only want to hear from seniors who vote, since that is what congress people pay attention to.

Along with filling out their survey, which they have already told the reader how to answer, they also want donations.

This letter is full of scare tactics to entice seniors to oppose health care for those who need it. Fore example on the top of  page one it says:

“Campaign to save Medicare by Stopping “Medicare for all.” Which would lead to the Rationing of Medical Care for Seniors.” 

Also it includes a box and line that says:

“I have enclosed my $10 Survey Processing Contribution to help cover your cost to tabulate and process my important survey. I agree this survey of ONE MILLION voting seniors will send a strong message to Congress that the overwhelming majority of America’s seniors oppose the Democrats “Medicare for All” plan—which would certainly destroy Medicare as well as bankrupt the country.’

So they are using scare tactics to try and convince seniors that health reform will take away THEIR health care. It appeals to the lowest common instincts of seniors. The message is ‘support your own health care or risk losing it due to someone else getting their health care needs met.’ Another way of looking at it is: ‘you have what you need, if someone else doesn’t—fuck them! Worry about your needs and screw the needs of others. They are betting that most seniors will worry mostly about themselves and not care at all about he needs of their fellow citizens.

This letter is a part of a fight-back strategy for those who benefit from the present health care system—a system based on the greed of big pharma and the belief that insurance companies have the right to profit off of the illness of others. Their profit margins are all that matter to them. Human life has no value to them at all.

Millions of Americans may die way before they need to because the US health care system simply doesn’t value their lives. They value profit. That profit is way more important to them than the lives of poor working people.

We knew something like this was coming. We knew that those profiting from insurance and sky high pharmacy prices were planning to attack the idea of “Medicare for all.” It is important that we become aware of such tactics and try to counter them.

We need to attack the insurance companies directly. They need to go. They are parasites and although a lot of people in this country “like their insurance” They do not realize how unnecessary those entities are. They need to be educated to the idea that insurance companies exist to take money out of the medical system and they provide no other needs. We also need to remind people that there is a reason they can’t afford the medicines their doctor prescribes.     

This battle won’t be easy, but many people are fed up with a medical system where they can’t afford the medicines their doctors prescribe them. The insurance companies and big pharma will try and confuse people with ideas meant to kill health care reform. We need to fight back and we need to fight back hard. Everyone needs to take part. If you receive one of these letters, send the envelope back with cat poop rather than money.

Let’s fight back! The battle is on!

Pix by County of Ventura Bargaining Update - October 31 2.

Corporate fentanyl (opioid) dealers donate big money to try and stop legal marijuana

By SJ Otto

An article in US News and World Report exposes one of the most corrupt political campaigns I have ever seen:

“Fentanyl Maker Donates Big to Campaign Opposing Pot Legalization.” The Fentanyl maker is not an illegal chemist, it is a big pharmacy corporation, Insys Therapeutics Inc. While it is not an illegal organization, it might as well be. According to the US News article:

“Insys currently markets just one product, according to an August filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission: a sublingual fentanyl spray it calls Subsys.

Two former company employees pleaded not guilty last month to federal charges related to an alleged kickback scheme to get doctors to prescribe Subsys.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit late last month against the company alleging Insys hawked the drug to doctors for off-label prescribing, saying the company's "desire for increased profits led it to disregard patients' health and push addictive opioids for non-FDA approved purposes."

So while this company is legal, it has skirted the law and behaved as if they were little more than a common illegal drug dealing organization. The US News article wrote:

“It's hard to imagine a more sinister donor than Insys Therapeutics Inc. in the eyes of pot legalization proponents, who long have claimed drug companies want to keep cannabis illegal to corner the market for drugs, some addictive and dangerous, that relieve pain and other symptoms.”

It also said:

“Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy campaign manager Adam Deguire tells U.S. News that legalization foes will not return the donation. In a statement he expressed gratitude and stressed that Insys is based in Arizona, unlike the Marijuana Policy Project, which has contributed substantially toward passing the initiative.

A voicemail requesting comment from Insys was not immediately returned.

Advocates for the marijuana legalization initiative Proposition 205, which is up 10 percentage points in a poll released Wednesday by the Arizona Republic, condemned the donation.”

Insys Therapeutics Inc. makes Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that may be responsible for as much as 90 percent of the opioid deaths, in recent years, that are being labelled an epidemic. We did an article on this drug, April of last year; “The opioid epidemic is really a fentanyl epidemic—and we don’t need all the hype.”

From 2011 until about last year, Insys also sold a generic equivalent to Marinol, a synthetic version of the cannabinoid THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). So it is a real irony that the company donated $500,000 toward defeating a ballot initiative to legalize the pot plant.

So far there is evidence that shows that legalizing marijuana would have some benefits. According to the US News article:

“Johns Hopkins University researchers concluded in 2014, after studying the effects of state medical marijuana laws through 2010, that "medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates."

This kind of corruption is not new to the US political system. But, as with the election of President Donald Trump, such corruption seems to be out in the open more and more often. It is open and blatant. It just seems as if conservative organizations like this just don’t care how they achieve political goals anymore. According to the US News Article:

“J.P. Holyoak, chairman of the initiative-backing Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, said in a statement that "we are truly shocked by our opponents' decision to keep a donation from what appears to be one of the more unscrupulous members of Big Pharma."

Holyoak said: "Our opponents have made a conscious decision to associate with this company. They are now funding their campaign with profits from the sale of opioids – and maybe even the improper sale of opioids. We hope that every Arizonan understands that Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy is now a complete misnomer. Their entire campaign is tainted by this money. Any time an ad airs against Prop. 205, the voters should know that it was paid for by highly suspect Big Pharma actors."

This is just like the Evangelicals who support Trump because he supports their political goals. And yet, they don’t seem to be bothered that the man they support for these Christian changes doesn’t follow a lot of their Christian laws, ethics or morality. It would seem that there are a lot of people who oppose legalizing marijuana for moral reasons. But taking money from a pharmaceutical opiate drug dealer seems about as immoral as they can get.  

Pix by The Idiot Factor.

D-Day vets honoured by chicken hawks—Trump and Estes

By SJ Otto

With all this talk of the bravery of those who fought on D-Day, there were at least two and maybe more Republicans who are all in favour of honouring those who fight our wars, but they never served in the armed forces themselves. Some of us call those people chicken-hawks.

Our President Donald Trump has never spent a single day on the military. Can we imagine Trump eating army food?! It would be funny if Trump weren’t so cowardly. Whoopi Goldberg comment on the View about him:

 “Thost Whoopi Goldberg didn't even want to talk about President Trump's visit to Normandy, indicating she was annoyed that someone like him would go there on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

When co-host Joy Behar mentioned the visit, Goldberg said something that prompted the show to censor her comments. She explained that she didn't want to talk about the issue because "all those people who went and gave their lives — they didn't ask, they didn't have bone spurs," she said on Thursday.

"They went, people went to fight the ugly that was happening. They went and did it, that's all I'm going to say," she added.

"The View" has a history of criticizing Trump over his draft deferments, one of which came after a doctor diagnosed him with bone spurs. Behar knocked Trump over the issue when the panel was discussing his alleged decision to obscure the view of the USS John S. McCain during a visit to Japan.

She joked that if Trump were more like the late senator he might get his own ship, titled "USS bone spurs."

During Thursday's show, co-host Ana Navarro blasted Trump as "out of control" for insulting Americans while overseas. "He's been out of control," she said, before noting his attack on actress Bette Midler. Co-host Sunny Hostin also pointed to Trump's attack on former Vice President Joe Biden.

"He's like a mob guy and yet he broke the cardinal rule of being a mobster. You don't talk about the family outside of the family," Behar said of that attack in May.

Trump is not the only chicken-hawk to honour the vest that fought in World War II. Here at home, on KAKE TV, I saw Ron Estes at a local Wichita ceremony honouring those who fought at Normandy. Ron told KAKE TV that he felt the fighting effort needed to be done—but not with him. He stayed home.

That brings on this poem:

When the smell of danger is in the air,

You can bet Ron Estes isn’t there,

When heroes come to save the day,

That’s when Ron Estes runs away,

When the soldiers go off to war

The chicken-hawks stay way afar.

And now Brave Sir Robin:

“Oakland Officials Decriminalize Psychedelics”—at long last adults will have a choice of intoxicants rather than alcohol

By SJ Otto

I am really glad to see this issue coming up to a vote in various cities. (The article below is about Oakland). To be honest I never thought I would see this happen. But I couldn’t be happier. I have had problems with alcohol in the past. For those who are un-aware, alcohol causes some very bad health problems, with heavy use.[1] And yet alcohol is the only powerful mind altering drug that is legal for all of us to use. I am glad that marijuana is being legalized in various forms—some for recreation, some for medical use. But I don’t like marijuana. Its effects are too difficult for me. The drug mostly makes me feel spacey. It doesn’t bring me a feeling of euphoria.

In small amounts, alcohol does create a feeling of euphoria, but it also creates a kind of sloppy state, where a person looses his/her sense of judgement. In simple language, it makes us act stupid. I like some of the effects of alcohol, but it is hard on my liver and creates other health problems.

My favourite of those drugs are mushrooms, shrooms or as we used to call it: psilocybin. The drug is like a very mild version of LSD. It lacks LSD’s hallucination type qualities. It does cause euphoria, which is something I like in a drug or intoxicating experience. That drug is also easier on the liver and causes far fewer health problems than alcohol. It has not been that easy to find locally here in Kansas, but if it were legal that could all change.

Allowing adults to legally use herbal highs, as psilocybin mushrooms, peyote and ayahuasca just makes sense. This would help me a lot. I have spent a lot of time in rehab places such as AA meetings. At some point I decided to give up and just try to use alcohol sparingly rather than total abstinence. Total abstinence is just not for me. Life is about developing life styles and I believe that a free people in a free society should have choices as to how they live.

People with narrow minded religious views on drug use don’t have the right to legislate how the rest of us should live. They have learned from the era of prohibition that banning alcohol will never work. But for those of us who seek occasional intoxication, we should have other choices than just alcohol.

We may be on the horizons of drug law changes that finally make sense and allows adults the freedom of choice. That time is long overdue. The following is from Marijuana Moment:   

Oakland Officials Decriminalize Psychedelics And Say They’ll Work To Legalize Sales Next

Oakland, California may become the first city in the United States to legalize the distribution and sale of psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca, in a way similar to how the city was the first to normalize commercial medical marijuana sales.

Much has to happen before that broader drug policy reform becomes a reality, but the Oakland City Council took a decisive first step on Tuesday when it voted 6 to 0 to approve a measure decriminalizing the possession of “entheogenic” plant- and fungi-based substances, also including mescaline and ibogaine.

Such plants have therapeutic potential in treating mental health conditions like addiction, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a slowly but steadily growing chorus of researchers and experts, but access to patients remains risky illegal behavior under current federal and state laws prohibiting them.

Under the terms of the unanimously approved Oakland resolution, “entheogenic plant practices,” including ayahuasca ceremonies and the consumption of mushrooms, are now “amongst the lowest priority” for law enforcement, and “any city funds or resources to assist in the enforcement of laws imposing criminal penalties” for adult use and possession is restricted.

In the immediate term, Decriminalize Nature Oakland, which led the charge to build support for the measure, will run similar campaigns in other California cities. The first will be next door in Berkeley, said Larry Norris, a cofounder of Decriminalize Nature.

“People see this, they can see we brought a community out, we made a resolution happen,” he told Marijuana Moment.

For the rest click here.

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[1] For an example of health problems see: “Health Risks of Chronic Heavy Drinking.”

Trumps’ new attacks on Cuba are anti-democratic—anti-freedom

By SJ Otto

We know that Donald Trump thinks socialism is the opposite of freedom and now he seems to believe he has the right to prevent nations in Latin America from voting for socialist candidates. He is taking the most undemocratic methods possible to try and stop socialism in Latin America, by banning travel to Cuba..

He has singled out three countries, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela, as undermining U.S. policy. From AP News:

“U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, who declared Cuba part of a "troika of tyranny " along with Nicaragua and Venezuela as he outlined plans for sanctions in November, said the new policy is intended to deny the Cuban government a vital source of revenue.”

 Apparently US policy is to prevent actual democracy. Of those countries, Nicaragua has a democracy that was partially created by past US leaders.[1] The only thing Nicaragua has done wrong is to elect a man that Trump does not approve of.

His latest actions are to ban travel to Cuba, which is now moving the US backward to the old cold war with Cuba. Also from AP:

“Cruise travel from the U.S. to Cuba began in May 2016 during President Barack Obama's opening with the island. It has become the most popular form of U.S. leisure travel to the island, bringing 142,721 people in the first four months of the year, a more than 300% increase over the same period last year. For travelers confused about the thicket of federal regulations governing travel to Cuba, cruises offered a simple, one-stop, guaranteed-legal way to travel.

That now appears to be over.

"Cruise ships as well as recreational and pleasure vessels are prohibited from departing the U.S. on temporary sojourn to Cuba effective tomorrow," the Commerce Department said in a statement to The Associated Press.”

That takes away a US citizens right to travel as he/she see fit. For those of us who want to see for ourselves what the communist nation of Cuba has to offer traveller, our rights have been violated. Our right to chose where we travel is now gone, when it comes to Cuba. I plan to travel to Cuba in just a few weeks through Pastors for Peace. Trump will not be stopping me.

One thing that is obvious in this article I’m using, trump is using this issue to try and win votes in Florida, a major home of right-wing gusanos.[2] According to the AP article:

Collin Laverty, head of Cuba Educational Travel, one of the largest Cuba travel companies in the U.S., called the new measures "political grandstanding aimed at Florida in the run up to the 2020 elections."

And further proof is this comment by Trumps’ Republican hack Marc Rubio:

"The Trump administration deserves tremendous credit for holding accountable the Cuban regime," Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said. "The United States must use all tools available under U.S. law to counter the Cuban regime's deceitful activities to undermine U.S. policy."

The AP article presented several opinions that were opposed to Trumps’ Cuban action:

"This affects all of us," said William Mártinez, 58, a Cuban-born American who lived in Florida for 46 years but returned five years ago to drive a classic car for tourists. "It's inhuman, the sanctions that they're putting on Cuba."

……"I've been dying to come to Cuba forever, to see the cars, the buildings," said Maria Garcia, a 46-year-old teacher from Puerto Rico who arrived in Havana Tuesday morning on a Norwegian cruise line. "I could do it with this cruise ... Trump needs to understand that people should come to this country, to enjoy and get to know its culture, just like we would do in any other part of the world."

Also:

“Cruises have become more popular than flights for leisure travelers to Cuba - nearly 30,000 more came by cruise ship than flights this year. The figures exclude Cuban-born Americans visiting family on the island.”

There are many of us here in the US who would like to have more politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elected to office. There are already political groups trying to smear Ocasio-Cortez as un-American.  Some of us would like to see Bernie Sanders elected president. If we lived in a smaller country in Latin America, Trump would be treating us as if we were terrorists. This is the kind of non-sense we all need to stop Trump from doing. Ocasio-Cortez is a member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). That group has been gaining membership since Sanders ran for president. We don’t need our party treated as an illegal or un-American organization. There is nothing anti-democratic about socialism.

Pix by Cuba to Welcome 26th Pastors for Peace “Friendshipme.

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[1] See Trump is so stupid he thinks Nicaragua is a dictatorship. 

[2] Gusanos (worms in English) is a slang insult the Cuban left uses to refer to the exiles who live in Florida.