Cubano béisbol players coming direct to America?

Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman

So, with a Treasury Department announcement from Wednesday, are we finally past the point of the likes of Aroldis Chapman and Yasiel Puig not having to engage in dangerous escapes from Cuba in order to play béisbol in America?

Well, we could be closer to that, but there's going to be a number of factors involved before we're THAT close to that.

So, let's start by taking a look at what the Treasury Department, which oversees sanctions against Cuba, had to say on Wednesday.

Here's the key points from that:

Cuban nationals in the United States in a non-immigrant status or pursuant to other non-immigrant travel authorization will be authorized to earn a salary or compensation, consistent with the terms of the particular visa, provided that the recipient is not subject to any special tax assessments in Cuba.  U.S. companies will be authorized to engage in transactions related to the sponsorship or hiring of Cuban nationals to work or perform in the United States similar to nationals from other countries, provided that no additional payments are made to the Cuban government in connection with such sponsorship or hiring.

Note the items in bold.

Commenter Historophiliac, at a group baseball blog where I also contribute, notes that Cuba signed a deal in 2014 with the KBO to let Cubans play in Korea in exchange for getting a cut of Cuban salaries. But, that's clearly cash, and wouldn't cut the mustard unless put into a shell company.

MLB, in requesting early in March that the Treasury Department make such changes, envisioned a nonprofit shell company as a workaround, though:

Under the proposed plan, according to M.L.B.’s top lawyer, Dan Halem, an entity made up of Cuban entrepreneurs and officials from baseball and its players’ union would be created. A percentage of salaries paid to Cuban players would go to the new body, which would function like a nonprofit organization and support youth baseball, education and the improvement of sports facilities in Cuba. 

The proposed body could satisfy the terms of the embargo, M.L.B. contends, because no money would go directly to the Cuban government.

Well, let's look at how this might play out, then. 

First, this won't affect the current season, whatever happens or will happen. We're too far into spring training for Cuban players to crack MLB or even AAA squads this year.

Second, per what I highlighted on the Treasury Dept. release, what does "payments" mean? Is it cash only, or is it any capitalist-based financial considerations?

Because, to channel my inner classicist a bit, MLB will have to steer between the Scylla of the letter of the Treasury Department and the Charybdis of what Cuba wants.

If "payments" is cash only, let's say one of Raul Castro's minions pitches something like the following to one of Commissioner Corleone's minions.

We like that you had a single spring training game here in 2016. We'd really like teams to agree to play a couple dozen.

And, you'll surely want to build an MLB-level spring training complex here, probably in Havana. Maybe a second in Santiago or something. (And feel free to add enough grandstands to that field, or those fields, to seat the typical Serie National crowd.)

¿Oh, and you know, Señor Commissioner? I'm sure enough Yanqui fans will want to see béisbol here that they might want to do so in the comfort of a new, American-class hotel.

We can name the whole complex after one of the best Yanqui writers, one who emblemed the manhood of béisbol and is beloved in both countries, Señor Ernesto Hemingway.

No cash trades hands. The whole complex is owned by a shell nonprofit which just happens to let Raul and/or Fidel appoint the majority of the board of directors.

Cubans get thousands of construction jobs for building all of this.

Now, how realistic would it be? That would not be cash payments; it would be in line with what I envision. And, from the MLBPA's union point of view, rather than being a cut of salaries, it would come on top of that. Plus, besides youth baseball, it would create jobs and promote tourism in Cuba, the latter bringing further Yanqui dollars to the island.

How realistic is that?

Well, we have this thing in the U.S. called a "presidential election."

Bernie Sanders isn't getting the Democratic nomination, and Jill Stein or whomever the Greens nominate isn't winning the election, so it's going to be Hillary Clinton vs. some Republican, either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in all likelihood.

Clinton would surely be OK with a fairly loose reading of the Treasury statement, on the spirit rather than the letter. A GOP president would be a different kettle of fish.

So, hold on Cards fans before you start looking for the next Aledmys Diaz.

Nix on fake #Twitter and nix on #nukes

The government of Costa Rica is officially in high dudgeon over the latest revelations concerning the so-called "Cuban Twitter" social media program that the U.S. Agency for International Development created as ... wait for it ...

Yet another way to try to disrupt the government of Fidel Castro's Cuba.

From what Costa Rica's saying, this renders previous statements from Dear Leader's minions null and void.

Documents obtained by the AP show that contractors working on ZunZuneo went to extensive lengths to hide its ties to the U.S., using foreign companies and computer servers paid for via a bank account in the Cayman Islands. They did so after acquiring more than 400,000 Cuban cellphone numbers from the island country's state-run telecommunications provider.

The AP found that ZunZuneo's development team initially operated out of Central America. A USAID manager supervised the work of U.S. contractor Creative Associates International from an office in San Jose, an unusual arrangement that raised eyebrows in Washington, according to U.S. officials.  ...

The U.S. government has denied that the program was secret or that it had a political agenda.

And, this isn't out of the blue, either:

Costa Rica's Foreign Ministry told the U.S. Embassy in June 2009 that the plan to develop the social media network could lead to "political difficulties" for Costa Rica, and it refused to grant diplomatic status to two U.S. government contractors involved in the program, La Nacion, Costa Rica's largest newspaper, reported Tuesday.

According to an internal Foreign Ministry memorandum, Javier Sancho Bonilla, protocol and state ceremonial director for the ministry, said the project "could create a situation politically inconvenient since it can be interpreted that it would violate the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries."

And, this is another one that can't be blamed on Bush, either.  Note that all dates involved are after Obama became president.

Glenn Greewald has more, though he's stil failed to write anything about the domestic threat of McCutcheon vs. F.E.C. (Don't think I've forgotten about that call-out, Glenn.)

The one takeaway is that this is an area where the National Security Agency in the U.S. and its counterpart in Britain, the General Communications Headquarters, are both active. I'm sure that, given 50-plus years of antagonism to Cuba (the AP story actually references the Kennedy-era Alliance for Progress), exploding conch shells, poisons, exploding cigars and more, there's more beneath the surface on this one.

How much more, who knows? After Congress gets more paperwork from AID, it may decide to shut the books again, after a private knuckle-rapping or two.

===

Meanwhile, the Marshall Islands wants all actual AND all believed but unadmitted nuclear-armed countries to disarm. And, it's filed suit with the International Court of Justice:

(Besides the United States) ... the countries targeted also include Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. The last four are not parties to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but the lawsuits argue they are bound by its provisions under "customary international law." The nonproliferation treaty, considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament efforts, requires negotiations among countries in good faith on disarmament.

Reality? It has about zero chance of doing anything. The ICJ might well, based on a previous judgment in 1996, give a favorable ruling, but, who's going to enforce it? And, the parallel suit in US court will go nowhere.

But, I admire the action. Even if it won't change human nature, it challenges us to do the best we can to change it anyway. We still need a whiff or two of idealism from time to time.

I also like that all suspected, not just all declared, nuclear powers are named, even if they've not signed the Nonproliferation Treaty. You bet your sweet bippy that if you've got nukes, you should be bound to be part of disarmament discussions.

MLB turns into Big Brother on Castro

MLB has found a way to trump Bud Selig's stupidity of a second wild card. The Miami Marlins have given manager Ozzie Guillen, long known for his off the wall outbursts, a five-day suspension for his comments about Fidel Castro.

My question, first, is did the Marlins act alone? Or did Cuban-Americans of an older generation thraten a boycott? Did Bud push the Marlins? It's too bad there's no real appeals process on this, so we could put Bud on the spot.

Second, given this, why didn't the White Sox suspend him longer for one or another of his antigay (or seemingly so) comments?

Third, will Ozzie finish out  the year as manager?

Fourth, maybe the comment "offended" some people, but can anybody find anything factually incorrect?

Sixth, a statement ... all you older, tea party type Cuban-Americans? Get over it.

Horowitz comes to praise neocon Obama, not bury him

When far-right bomb-thrower David Horowitz finds President Obama’s Cairo speech wunderbar, the question is now, not whether Obama is a liberal or not, but, just how much of a neoliberal can he even claim to be?

Or, is he now a closet neoconservative?

It’s clear Obama is lightly and proudly wearing the mantle of “presidentialism.” As Horowitz notes, Obama not only did NOT repudiate Bush’s invasion of Iraq, he all but embraced the neocon regime change reasoning behind it.

In the new world, given Hillary Clinton’s intransigence at the recent OAS meeting, if I’m Raul or Fidel Castro, I walk very lightly, hearing Obama so openly embrace regime change.

US political duopoly cannot let go of Cuba

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, AFTER the Organization of American States voted to readmit Cuba, albeit conditionally, uttered the following drivel, which surely is supported by The One:

"Cuba can come back into the OAS in the future if the OAS decides that its participation meets the purposes and principles of the organization, including democracy and human rights," Clinton said in a statement.

Well, we could get booted for torture, I suppose.

Beyond that, it’s apparent that the OAS kicked the can down the road because of Obama Administration intransigence personified by Clinton. But, if all other OAS members say, two years from now, “Cuba has made satisfactory process and we’re ready for a final vote,” will Obama’s State Department, whoever runs it then, insist on being a stinker?

Answer: 3-1 odds Yes.

Cuba re-admitted to OAS after all?

Contra an earlier post of mine, where I discussed reports that re-admission of Cuba to the Organization of American States had broken down, allegedly over a U.S. insistence that Cuba move toward democracy, the latest word is that Cuba is in, with no information on what, if any, preconditions are involved.

That then said, Cuba says it doesn’t want in, because the OAS is an American tool. Maybe Raul Castro sings a different tune than Fidel on this, especially if the re-admission is a fait accompli

It IS without preconditions, but with Cuba agreeing to comply with OAS conventions on human rights and other issues.

That said, overall, the vote has to be considered a “win” for more moderate approaches to Cuba. And, an acknowledgement of reality-based foreign affairs by the Obama Administration.

US, Latin American left still can’t agree on Cuba

American insistence on Cuban commitment to democracy, apparently rejected by Venezuela, Nicaragua and a couple other countries, has Cuba’s OAS application on hold. And, ridiculously so.

Did we ever put the same restrictions on Chinese WTO membership? Yes, Venezuela, especially, with Hugo Chavez, is just playing spoiler with this issue. But, I bet if the U.S. agreed to “more democratic” rather than “democratic,” it could get Cuba’s membership approved.

And, at the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talking about how much her husband’s administration reached out to Cuba is simply laughable. In addition to tweaking language, somebody on the U.S. side is probably going to have to do at least some degree of mea culpa, rather than just trying to do an Obama “look forward” while lying about the past.

Sean Penn on the real Hugo Chavez - as part of Tres Amigos

Penn pulls the mask of the mainstream media, Vice President-elect Joe Biden (and Obama?) and the rest of the turgid "bipartisan foreign policy establishment to take a look at the real Hugo Chavez.

And, no, this wasn't some touchy-feely Hollywood liberal thing.

Accompanying Penn were respected, renowned historian Douglas Brinkley, not a touchy-feely liberal in anybody's book, and the acerbic, skeptical, insightful political and intellectual wild card ... Christopher Hitchens.

It's a much more realistic report than the bullshit PBS put out yesterday on Frontline.

That said, the Raul Castro part wasn't quite so well. He would meet only with Penn, not Brinkley or Hitch, and not even with Penn's Hispanic majordomo riding shotgun. He said that was because he'd informally promised his first official interview as president to somebody else.

That said, did you know Cuba's military and that of the U.S. have held monthly meetings over Guantanamo-related issues for more than a dozen years? And that Raul is willing to open Cuba's offshore oil rights to foreign exploration? Castro also refutes (and has U.S. military conformation) the idea that Cuba sponsors drug smuggling.

That said, Penn asked about, and Castro denied the mass existence of, political prisoners in Cuba.

Read the full story for the real story on both Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Millions for Burma, pennies for Cuba

So, we can shell out the money for any right-wing dictatorship hit by a tropical storm or cyclone, but Cuba still gets the back of our hand?

The heartless of BushCo on Cuba

As Hurricane Ike is set to basically obliterate Cuba, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says “I don’t think … lifting of the embargo (against Cuba) would be wise.”

Let’s see if John McCain toes the BushCo line for Cuban votes in South Florida or not.

US playing bagman to Cuban dissidents?

At least, that’s what Havana claims:

At a news conference, the officials presented a series of alleged e-mails they said were between the diplomat, Michael Parmly, and groups based in Miami, Florida, opposed to the communist government. The Cubans also played recordings of phone conversations allegedly involving other diplomats.

The alleged conversations did not provide any evidence that the purported letters carried between Parmly and dissident groups contained any cash.

I’m sure the difference between the smoke and the fire is somewhere in the middle here. The BushCo politicized State Department is dumb enough something like this is possible, but it doesn’t seem likely.

OTOH, this is on the same day that Venezuela claimed U.S. jets violated its airspace.

OTOH to that, Havana and Caracas could be orchestrating their PR campaigns.

Stay tuned.

CFR paper – is it embargo-lite on Cuba?

The Council on Foreign Relations has issued a formal task force paper calling for a partial end to our embargo of Cuba (PDF). But, it covers broader U.S.-Latin America relations as well. And, befitting the CFR, globalization seems to be a magic bullet of the paper.

Here are some highlights:

1. Free trade/globalization as part of the “solution” in summary/overview;
2. Latinos expect democracy to be social democracy, which BushCo and even Clintonite DC didn’t get;
3. Cuban economy has been growing faster than US in the past couple of years;
4. Still high inequality on Gini indexes in much of Latin America;
5. NAFTA of limited effect in Mexico due to ag subsidy in US, and, extrapolating out, the same will be true in the WTO unless Doha round makes major change;
6. Columbia violence more drug-driven than political now;
7. Failure of Plan Columbia in War on Drugs and shift of pro-drug work to Mexico;
8. Notes that FARC laptops found in Ecuador must be authenticated by Interpol;
9. Migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to US higher, as percent of population, than from Mexico and estimated, in absolute numbers, as at one-tenth of the Mexican migration;
10. Transnational gang worries are growing;
11. Benefits of “circular migration” touted;
12. Deepened ties with Brazil, especially re Doha round of WTO, recommended;
13. Work more with Mexico on energy and security issues recommended;
14. Negating Venezuelan influence by increasing funding for social justice programs in Latin America recommended’
15. Blames Cuba, not US embargo, for many of Cuba’s long-term core problems.

So, it’s a mixed bag of neoliberalism, with a fairly optimistic view of free trade’s power. In short, it’s nice, but it’s not “all that.”

CFR says partially end Cuba embargo

Better late to the game than never, I guess from the Establishment pillar of our “bipartisan foreign policy establishment.” (BPFE, below.)

The Council on Foreign Relations has issued a formal paper calling for a partial end to our embargo of Cuba (Full PDF available at linked page).

Here’s the highlights, per Steve Clemons, who seems to be overselling this a bit, or more than a bit:

1. Permit freer travel to and facilitate trade with Cuba. The White House should repeal the 2004 restrictions placed on Cuban-American family travel and remittances.

2. Reinstate and liberalize the thirteen categories of licensed people-to-people “purposeful travel” for other Americans, instituted by the Clinton administration in preparation for the 1998 Papal Visit to Havana.

3. Hold talks on issues of mutual concern to both parties, such as migration, human smuggling, drug trafficking, public health, the future of the Guantanamo naval base, and on environmentally sustainable resource management, especially as Cuba, with a number of foreign oil companies, begins deep water exploration for potentially significant reserves.

4. Work more effectively with partners in the western hemisphere and in Europe to press Cuba on its human rights record and for more democratic reform.

5. Mindful of the last one hundred years of U.S.-Cuba relations, assure Cubans on the island that the United States will pursue a respectful arm’s-length relationship with a democratic Cuba.

6. Repeal the 1996 Helms-Burton law, which removed most of the executive branch's authority to eliminate economic sanctions. While moving to repeal the law, the U.S. Congress should pass legislative measures, as it has with agricultural sales, designed to liberalize trade with and travel to Cuba, while supporting opportunities to strengthen democratic institutions there.

Why is this only a partial end?

I don't hear Steve referencing the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act (the Torricelli Law), for example. Wiki Cuban embargo for more details about what all the “Cuban embargo” involves.

Let’s be blunt.

Point 3: Our BPFE, not to be confused with BFE, will have a radically different idea on the “future of Gitmo” than a democratic as well as an authoritarian Cuban government.

Point 5: So, Cuba doesn’t get respect until it becomes a democracy?

Beyond that, there’s nothing about an apology for the U.S. propping up Bautista all those years, etc.

If I get time to browse the PDF in more detail this evening, I’ll write more.

Obama: Bit of a hypocrite on Cokes in school?

He says we could help children’s health a lot by getting sodas out of schools.

True indeed. But, has he made efforts to seriously reform farm legislation so monocrop Big Ag corn doesn’t get so much subsidies, which then help make high-fructose corn syrup in those sodas so cheap? Has he fought against the tariff on Cuban sugar, which allows HFCS to undercut it and make Cokes so cheap?

Fidel retires; what reforms does Raul want?

It’s the end of an era. Fidel Castro is retiring as Cuba’s president, with brother Raul, five years younger, expected to succeed him.

As the story notes, Raul has hinted at reforms. Last year, he said the country needed “structural changes.”

Of course, the even bigger question is, will the U.S. government drop its knee-jerk paranoia, as well as dropping at least some of the plethora of punitive sanctions and prohibitions? Don’t count on either McCain or Clinton/Obama uttering a peep, rather than promising to keep up a hard line as they pander after Florida’s Cuban-American voters.

The Schmuck Talk Express™, in the pre-presidential lusting past, has actually supported loosening restrictions. But the Flip-Flop Express of today is a different character.

On the Dem side, expecting Clinton not to pander with a hard line is ridiculous. Obama can put his money where his mouth is on a “change” issue, but I won’t hold my breath.

Well, here’s the Department of State committing to keep up the hard line.

Castro’s resignation letter is here. Interesting both that it was released in the dead of night and posted online hours before radio announcements. Was he trying to soften the emotional self-blow if people didn’t mourn too much?