« To distract from increasing ‘migrant crime’ the Bidenites tout ‘the largest one-year decline’ in homicides | A new movie about a generational heroine »
PrintMarch 1, 2024
Omar and pals sneak off to Cuba
When someone comes to America, land of the free, as a refugee, presumably to escape some awful homeland, does it seem funny that such a person then jumps on a flight to Cuba to advocate for its superior model?
It does to me.
According to the Miami Herald:
A delegation of the U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus traveled to Cuba last week in a trip that has not previously been disclosed by the legislators nor reported in Cuban state media. The group of about a dozen people was led by Democratic U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal of the state of Washington and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. It included a congressional staffer from the office of California Rep. Barbara Lee’s office, sources with knowledge of the trip told the Miami Herald. Jayapal and Omar, members of the informal left-wing group of lawmakers known as “the squad,” did not reply to emails and messages seeking comment. Lee’s office also did not reply to a request for comment.After the Herald published this story, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, comprising more than 100 lawmakers and chaired by Jayapal, confirmed the trip. “Representatives Jayapal and Omar traveled to Cuba last week, where they met with people from across Cuban civil society and government officials to discuss human rights and the U.S.-Cuba bilateral relationship,” said a Caucus spokesperson.
The secrecy is strange, here, given the brazenness with which Cuba supporters have shown for cutting sugar cane and praising socialism on their illegal trips to Cuba in the past. Michael Moore certainly didn't keep his trip to Cuba secret, nor did pop tart Beyonce, prancing at the Malecon to make a lucrative video, nor did Barack Obama, doing the wave at some stadium with Raul Castro, Cuba's military dictator. Why keep it under wraps when Joe Biden and Barack Obama have both loosened travel restrictions on the communist island hellhole to permit free travel?
And if the aim was to meet with Cuba's civil society dissidents, most of whom have been imprisoned in the Castro oligarchy's dank, filthy, dungeons anyway, why keep that secret? Cuba jails its civil society members. It sends 'turba' mobs to encircle their homes baying and screaming, flinging bags of urine and fecal matter. Being a civil society member takes a lot of bravery in Cuba these days. Wouldn't meeting Cuba's nascent democrats be worth making some political hay about?
More likely, since Cuba arranged this, they weren't real dissidents. They were more likely Potemkin dissidents, put out there as a fig leaf, a dog-and-pony show, to give the group some kind of cover if the trip was found out. Notice that no names were released of these vaunted 'civil society' members they met with "across Cuban civil society." As if there were any 'across' in that socialist hellhole.
The Herald noted that it was a weird claim, given how many times these visiting leftists had voted against measures in Congress to support Cuba's dissidents, who are mostly people of color fighting Cuba's white and rich nomenklatura ruling elites.
It's hard to think the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which India-born Jayapal and Somalia-born Omar are chair and deputy chair respectively, were heading on down to Cuba to meet with Castroite communist leaders for anything other than to discuss how they can promote Cuba's interests in Congress. Cuba has many, after all -- lawsuits from surviving members of families who have died at the hands of their spies, an end to the paltry sanctions that remain against the island, the importance of voting against any dissident-supporting measure in Congress, taking Cuba off the list of state-sponsors of terror, preventing the U.S. from blocking Russian, Iranian and Chinese spy bases to spy on the U.S., allowing more remittances and banking privileges, and of course, promoting the millions of migrants they've shipped into the states, keeping these potential dissidents out of the Castro oligarchy's hair as well as slipping in a spy or two with this open-borders morass to keep an eye on the Miami Cubans and pick a few off. And the big one the Castroites want more than anything else: A bailout of their socialist mismanagement and a new sugar daddy to draw money from. They've already "used up" everyone else.
Omar in the past, has been a reliable supporter of Cuban interests, doing exactly what they want in every instance.
Why else would they want to keep this trip secret until someone leaked it?
Omar already has been a big supporter of Cuba's interests through her congressional votes, as Minnesota Peace Project described here:
Rep. Omar voted no on H.Res.760, which passed the House 382-40. This resolution expresses solidarity with the Cuban people, condemns Cuba's repression of peaceful protesters and journalists, and calls on Cuba to not arrest or detain peaceful protestors and to release all political prisoners and arbitrarily detained individuals. Further, it urges specified U.S. actions: working to expand internet access for the Cuban people; supporting the Cuban people’s inherent right to demonstrate peacefully; standing behind the aspirations of the Cuban people for the rights that they have been denied by the regime since 1959; assessing whether the United States can develop methods to allow remittances, medical supplies, and other forms of support from the United States to directly benefit the Cuban people in ways that alleviate humanitarian suffering without providing United States dollars to the Cuban military; and rallying the international community to join in condemning human rights abuses and honoring the Cuban people’s demands for freedom. - Nov. 3, 2021 [congress.gov]
...and...
Rep. Omar was one of a group of 75 Democratic Members of Congress who sent a letter to President Biden urging him to take swift executive action to reverse the Trump Administration’s draconian policies towards Cuba, return to the diplomatic path charted by the Obama–Biden Administration, and pursue an ultimate end to the nearly six-decade-long economic embargo. - March 4, 2021 [https://lee.house.gov/news/press-releases]
...and...
Rep. Omar was part of a group of congresspersons who signed a letter to President Biden, asking him to prioritize the well-being of the Cuban people. “The current humanitarian situation in Cuba is growing ever more dire, with shortages of food and goods and decreasing access to medical supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge you to take immediate humanitarian actions -- as the United Nations has urged repeatedly -- to suspend U.S. regulations that prevent food, medicine, and other humanitarian assistance from reaching the Cuban people. We also support a more comprehensive shift to deepen engagement with Cuba and move towards normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations”, wrote the legislators. Specific recommendations were made such as: removing licenses required to send medical supplies, lifting restrictions on financial transactions related to humanitarian aid, removing restrictions on remittances, rolling back restrictions on travel to Cuba, and removing Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism after a new review. - Dec. 14, 2021 [https://justfacts.votesmart.org/public-statement/1577134/letter-to-joseph-biden-president-of-the-united-states-of-america-support-human-rights-and-humanitarian-needs-in-cuba]
She does whatever they want.
Cuba has a lot of interests, and even though Omar has seemed unconnected in the past in this socialist dictatorship, somehow the Cubans knew they could go to her.
That's what appears to have happened in a braggy article Omar posted on her congressional website:
Republicans said they removed Omar, D-Minn., for her years-old comments that referenced antisemitic tropes, taking away a platform she sometimes used to criticize U.S. foreign policy, particularly on human rights. But in the four months since her ouster, Omar has gained more clout with foreign embassies, visiting parliamentarians, the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers than she had managed in four years on the committee.“It’s been actually fascinating,” Omar said in an interview last week in her office. “Since I was removed from committee, I think I’ve had more visits from parliamentarians around the world and visits with ambassadors in the last three months than I would in a year or two while I was on the committee."
...
Omar is now sought out for meetings by ambassadors, particularly those from Africa. She introduced a bill in March that would overhaul the arms export process; in April she was appointed a member of the House Democracy Partnership, a bipartisan group that seeks to deepen ties with foreign legislatures; and in May she launched the U.S.-Africa Policy Working Group that is meant to be a parallel forum to the Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee for oversight and legislative work.
That's like saying you've hung a shingle out for every anti-American dictatorship out there to do their bidding, and who knows, be repaid in return by some through various shell mechanisms. Cuba, of course, doesn't pay and wasn't mentioned in the piece, (the socialist hellhole relies on the boundless love of socialism for the loyalty of its acolytes), but Middle Eastern, African, and Chinese interests have been known to pay in other cases. It's creepy stuff to hear that Omar is getting lots of visits from ambassadors from potentially hostile and greedy countries, as well as likely anti-American agents who know exactly who to go to with this information she's disclosed. No doubt Cuba was one of her courting rogue-state foreigners, given that this trip happened.
The secrecy of the trip is disturbing and merits a congressional inquiry as to what this group was really up to, given that they've been known to promote anti-American interests, which in fact is all they ever do. What was Omar doing in Cuba and why did she not want anyone to know about it?
Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License
