PrairiePundit

  The Federalist Wire: ... The communist government in Cuba, labeled a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism, reportedly duped the administration of President Joe Biden into financing its repressive military apparatus through non-government company handling remittances, according to an investigation by El Nuevo Herald published Tuesday. The scheme, orchestrated by the Castro regime, funneled money to its military and circumvented sanctions imposed by President-elect Donald Trump in 2020. These sanctions targeted military-run businesses controlling remittances to ensure that money sent by Cubans abroad would not bolster the regime’s authoritarian grip. However, the Cuban government evaded these restrictions by establishing a new company in 2022 that presented itself as independent but, in reality, was under military control, El Nuevo Herald revealed. According to leaked Cuban government documents reviewed by the outlet, this state-controlled entity, named Orbit S.A., was set up...

 DC Daily Journal: ... A new political controversy has surfaced involving one of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s cabinet-level appointees, Commissioner Ida Rukavina. Appointed in 2022 to lead Minnesota’s Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation, Rukavina is now facing intense scrutiny after a social media post revealed that she had decorated her home with posters of infamous communist dictators. The controversy began when a Minnesota resident discovered a December 2021 Facebook post showing a picture of Rukavina’s dog, with the images of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara clearly visible in the background. The photo, which appears to have since been deleted, has sparked outrage, raising questions about her political sympathies and fitness for public office. Mao Zedong, one of the leaders featured in Rukavina’s home decor, was the communist dictator of China from the late 1940s until his death in 1976. Mao’s policies, including the infamous “Great Leap Forward” and “Cultural Revo...

 NY Post: This rueful joke has made its way around Cuba for decades: A foreign tourist, soaking up what he thinks are the advances of the communist revolution, stops a kid in the street for a chat. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” the visitor asks. “A foreigner,” answers the young Cuban. Morbid humor has long been the staple of communist regimes, from Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union, from China to the once-prosperous Caribbean island of Cuba. People who have lived through communism, with its alternating bouts of horrors and tedium, say it is one way to deal with such surreal surroundings. But today, the joke meant to pour scorn on Cuba’s miserable conditions has become reality: Between 2022 and 2023, 10% of all Cubans have fled their socialist paradise to live elsewhere. That’s more than one million people, and most of them have come to the United States, courtesy of President Biden’s open-border policies and the miserable record of his “border czar,” Vice President K...

 Miami Herald: The former head of the Pentagon’s investigation into the mysterious health incidents known as Havana Syndrome told the CBS investigation show “60 Minutes” he believes Russia was behind them and was attacking U.S. officials abroad and at home. In partnership with The Insider, a Russian exile media outlet, and German magazine Der Spiegel, 60 Minutes reported Sunday night on new evidence connecting a possible domestic incident of Havana Syndrome to Russia and identified a Russian military intelligence unit, identified as 29155, as the possible culprit of some of the suspected attacks, the latest turn in a case that has confounded U.S. spy agencies. Havana Syndrome got its name from the city where U.S. and Canadian diplomats and intelligence officials first reported in 2016 experiencing strange noises and sensations of pressure, and later developed debilitating symptoms like vertigo, migraines and hearing and cognitive problems. The incidents were later reported around t...

 The Federalist Wire: ... Cruz slammed leftist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also known as AMLO, this week for demanding that the United States give billions of dollars to Latin American countries and assist Marxist regimes, or else Mexico will continue to allow illegal aliens to flood the southern border. Cruz’s comments come after AMLO stated in an interview aired on Sunday that he had abolished corruption in Mexico and that the hundreds of political assassinations carried out in his country each year pose no threat to democracy. AMLO demanded earlier this year that if the United States wanted to help combat the millions of illegal aliens crossing the southern border, it would have to give tens of billions of dollars per year to Latin American countries, grant work visas to ten million illegal aliens in the United States, lift sanctions on socialist Venezuela, and end the embargo on communist Cuba. “Notice his demands. His demands are end the embargo against Cuba...

 AP: Cuban government defends plans to either cut rations or increase prices Government-controlled markets continue to be a failure in Cuba.  

 Reuters: Cuban Idalberto Echavarria maneuvered his wife Olga in a wheelchair to the front of the line at Terminal 2 of Havana's airport, dodging luggage and a sea of people bidding farewell to friends and family. The crowded terminal, a launch point for Cubans making their way by air to Nicaragua then overland to the United States, is one barometer of the frenzy to migrate from the communist-run island nation. For many, like Echavarria and his wife, it has also become a last resort as Cuba's economic crisis deepens with no end in sight. "There are other ways, but you need money or a family member outside the country," Echavarria told Reuters in an interview at the airport, referring to a refugee program introduced by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden in January that requires a U.S.-based sponsor. He and his wife, who is unable to walk due to a leg infection, have no retirement funds, no well-placed relatives in foreign countries and little access to lega...

ISW: ... The Ukrainian liberation of two villages that Russian forces were fighting hard to hold could correspond with the severe degradation of the Russian units defending them, as Ukrainian advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast appear to correspond with the significant degradation of defending Russian units and formations in that sector of the front. Russian forces defending in western Zaporizhia Oblast since the start of the counteroffensive have done so largely without operational-level unit rotations and have likely suffered compounding losses.[3] Elements of the Russian 42nd Motorized Rifle Division’s 71st, 70th, and 291st Motorized Rifle Regiments (58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District)routinely repelled Ukrainian assaults and engaged in various “combat clashes,“ including limited engagements and some counterattacks, during the first phase of the counteroffensive from June to August 2023.[4] In mid-to-late August, Ukrainian forces began breaking through the initial...

 USA Today: The majority of Marcos Perez’s friends fled the country last year. Now, he and his family are pooling their money to do the same. “Only a few of my friends are left, the ones who lack ambition and the ones who have kids. I could count them on one hand,” Perez said. His father sells goods on the black market to keep the family fed and clothed, and has even earned enough to buy a new, sleek metal fridge, an uncommon luxury in Cuba. Over the past year, 305,000 Cubans crossed the U.S.-Mexico border , most asking for asylum. That’s nearly 3% of the island’s population. Many migrants flew to Nicaragua or Panama, countries that do not require a specific visa for Cubans, and trekked through Central America and Mexico to arrive at the U.S. border. Others applied for visas to travel to the U.S. directly. The exodus was the product of the island’s economic collapse, which has driven many thousands into food insecurity. Originally, Cubans were exempt from Title 42, the pandemic-era...

 Reuters: Lines for fuel in Cuba´s capital Havana snaked for blocks on Wednesday as frustrated citizens waited for hours, and in some cases days, to fill their tanks, the latest chapter in a growing economic crisis that is rattling the Caribbean island nation. Public transportation, tourists and taxi drivers have all suffered in recent months as the shortages have grown increasingly acute, raising tensions in the country´s most populous city. "I've been three days waiting in this line for gasoline and we still don´t know if the (fuel) truck will arrive today," said private taxi driver Alexander Pérez, 43. "The situation across the country is critical and the lines endless, and they don´t give any explanation." The reason for the shortfall, among the worst in months, if not the past year, remains unclear. ... I think it is pretty clear.  communism is one of the most inefficient economic models existing.  There is little incentive when no one profits from a transa...

 American Defense News: In the midst of a global crisis revolving around Russia, the country’s ally Cuba has already received at least $322 million worth of oil since the beginning of Russia’s war with Ukraine. The war with Ukraine started in February, and since it has sent shockwaves across the world, with many Russian-allied countries refusing to condemn the invasion of Ukraine. Since then, many sanctions have been imposed on Russia. American Military News reports : The figure marks a significant increase compared to recent years when Cuba received $35 million worth of Russian petroleum in 2017 and $55.5 million in 2018, but nothing in the following years, according to United Nations data on world trade. And it turns the Caribbean island into another market for oil from Russia, helping the country evade international sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine while keeping its industry afloat. “All of this is very convenient for Russia because, due to the sanctions, Russian ports are ...

 PJ Media: Days after Hurricane Ian ravaged Cuba, residents of the island still don’t have power, and they’re fed up. For the past two nights, Cubans have  taken to the streets  to protest the lack of power and the Communist regime’s slow response to it. On top of the blackouts, the Cuban regime has shut down internet service throughout the island, adding to the anger and frustration that the Cuban people are experiencing. Protesters have gathered outdoors, banging pots and pans, burning tires and garbage, and even blocking streets for two nights. Cuba’s entire power grid went offline Tuesday night as Ian bore down, and, while some of Havana’s power was back up by Friday night, much of the island still went without electricity. The Associated Press spoke with individual protesters  to find out what drove the demonstrations: Masiel Pereira, a housewife, said that “the only thing I ask is that they restore the current for my children.” A neighbor, Yunior Velásquez, lam...

 AP: One Cuban man endured a trek through eight countries that lasted more than a month. Another man paid a small fortune for a furtive speedboat trip. A third decided to risk a perilous passage aboard a homemade raft rather than stay a moment longer on the island. Cubans are fleeing their country in the largest numbers in more than four decades, choosing to stake their lives and futures on a dangerous journey to the United States by air, land and sea to escape economic and political woes. Most fly to Nicaragua as tourists and slowly make their way to the U.S. border, often to Texas or Arizona . A smaller number gamble on an ocean voyage. Three men who survived the odyssey spoke to The Associated Press about it. Tens of thousands of others share the same goal. From January to July, U.S. border authorities stopped Cuban migrants entering from Mexico nearly 155,000 times, more than six times as many as in the same period of 2021. From October to August, the Coast Guard intercepted mo...

 Reuters: The Cuban capital of Havana will begin electricity blackouts in August, has canceled carnival and is taking other measures as the country’s energy crisis worsens, state media reported on Saturday. The capital, home to a fifth of the population of 11.2 million and center of economic activity in Cuba, had been spared the daily power outages of four or more hours that the rest of the island has endured for months. Blackouts have sparked a few small local protests this summer and a year ago in July fueled a day of unprecedented unrest across the country as discontent boiled over. For now, a schedule of power outages will mean each of Havana's six municipalities will have its electricity cut every three days during peak mid-day hours, according to the local Communist Party daily, Tribuna de la Habana, which reported on a meeting of local authorities. The blackouts reflect a deepening economic crisis that began with harsh new U.S. sanctions on the island in 2019 and worsened wi...

 AP: Dany Pérez had spent four days in a line of vehicles waiting to fill his truck with diesel he needs for the 900-kilometers (560-mile) trip from Havana to his home in eastern Cuba. Taxi driver Jhojan Rodríguez had been waiting at another station even longer — it was nearing two weeks — but he was finally near the head of the line of hundreds of vehicles in the Playa district of the capital. Such lines have become increasingly common in Cuba, where officials apparently have been sending scarce diesel fuel to power generation plants rather than fuel stations for vehicles. It's not the first time the island has suffered fuel shortages, but it's one of worst. “I have seen pretty bad situations, but not like now,” said the 46-year-old Pérez, who was eating and sleeping in his 1950s-era Chevrolet truck, which he had outfitted to haul some 40 passengers. Drivers in the lines have tried to organize themselves by creating lists of those waiting and updating them daily as they wait f...

  Washington Examiner: Cuban and Haitian migrants setting sail to Florida border at alarming rates They appear to be the two groups Biden opposes when it comes to immigration.  The Cubans have experienced communism and are unlikely to vote for Democrats so Biden does not want them. 

  Breitbart: EXCLUSIVE – Biden’s Concessions to Venezuela, Cuba Regimes Frustrate, Baffle Hispanics Biden continues to pander to despots around the world.  It baffles non-Hispanics too. 

  Breitbart: Joe Biden Deports over 1,000 Cuban Refugees in Especially Violent Year for Dissidents The borders are only open for potential Democrat votes and not for refugees from communism who are smart enough to vote against Democrats. 

 Tom Rogan: O n June 5, 2007, President George W. Bush arrived at the Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm, Germany. The Baltic Sea resort was hosting that year's G-8 summit. But this would be no ordinary gathering. Exceptional witness testimony indicates in hindsight that Bush and others in his delegation may have been victims of the so-called "Havana Syndrome." The possible link between ailments suffered by Bush's delegation and Havana Syndrome has not been previously reported. Havana Syndrome was named when dozens of U.S. government officers assigned to the embassy in Havana, Cuba, began experiencing what the government referred to as "anomalous health incidents." Hundreds of other U.S. personnel have subsequently experienced Havana Syndrome globally since 2016. A 2020 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine  report  identified common symptoms as "a sensation of intense pressure or vibration in the head, and pain in the ear or more diffusely...

 Monica Showalter: Under Joe Biden's wall-free open-borders policy, pretty much any unvetted person from any country on earth can enter the U.S. illegally and get papers to work for years here so long as they employ the loophole of "claiming asylum." Merits are irrelevant. All they have to do is say the magic words, and it's 'open, sesame.' Nevertheless, Joe has exceptions: Those would be people from socialist hellholes who may have actual legitimate grounds for claiming asylum. Something is starting to look a little funny with this picture. Biden has ordered Cubans fleeing totalitarian communism coming in from the high seas to be forced back. Now, according to Fox News,  we learn this: The Biden administration  has reportedly lobbied Mexico to impose restrictions on Venezuelan migrants, amid an increase in those fleeing the brutal Maduro regime coming to the U.S. border in recent months. Reuters  reports that Me...