House votes to ease rule on food sales to Cuba

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to make it easier to sell U.S. farm products to Cuba by overriding a Bush administration requirement to pay in cash before the ship leaves harbor.

By voice vote, the House adopted language allowing payment to be made before the goods change hands, a more common approach for cash sales that also speeds delivery. It became part of a Treasury funding bill passed on a 406-22 vote.
...
-- defeated, 245-183, an amendment to end the U.S. economic boycott. Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, unsuccessfully tried similar amendments in the past.

Rangel called the embargo a "failed policy" that has not improved human rights in Cuba, "while causing injury to ordinary Cubans, as well as Americans whose freedom to travel and to pursue business opportunities on the island are restricted."

--rejected, 236-187, amendment that would have made it easier for students to study in Cuba.

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=12532840&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

Its not like either side of the Cuba sanctions want them to end (its a mixed group of Rs and Ds both pro and anti trade). If sanctions were to end then so would the pro and anti trade campaign dollars.

Its an example of why we need tax supported campaign funding.

My God thinks people should get food and medicine when they need it. My God doesn't think families should be separated because of the politics of a handful of maniacs.

to visit other countries.

...to study in Cuba. Can't have a bunch of U.S. Students finding out that Cuba's not as bad as the U.S. Government say it is.

in US/Cuba relations, only to have _Bush's Cuban "exile" minions strip the language out in secret so they never went anywhere. It was explained that they ONLY way any of the changes could work is if the votes were so largely in favor, they were veto-proof.

If this works out, this is REALLY a very LARGE step forward. I can't wait to hear more as soon as possible. I've already checked, and nothing is available now, beyond what is already included in this article.

Thanks to Rose Siding for getting the information out there.

The hard-line exiles' friend from Sugarland is gone. Tom DeLay helped to tighten the embargo and made travel restrictions for Americans wishing to visit the island even more onerous.

I hope more farmers and ranchers serve notice to THEIR congressional representatives that they want better access to Cuban markets and that those representatives are supposed to represent THEM, not right-wing Cuban politicos living out of state who could care less about their interests.

...between Tom Delay and the Major Sugar Corp from Sugarland, and the Cuban embargo. :think: I'd be willing to bet that the Sugar Corp., based in Sugarland, was one of the major losers when Castro kicked out the American Sugar companies when he took over the Cuban Government.

Do you know, off-hand, what the Sugar company is there in Sugarland? Are they one of the companies that now grows Sugar Beets instead of Sugar Cane?

I might need do more research on this one.

I'd always thought that De Lay's hatred of Castro was ideological. I remember reading somewhere that his father worked in Venezuela for a while and took young Tom with him. On the round-about route back to the US, the plane on which DeLay was traveling had to put down at Jose Marti airport and younger DeLay was supposedly traumatized for life when Cuban soldiers boarded the plane supposedly looking either for contraband, saboteurs, or people without the proper exit papers. De Lay has supposedly hated Commies ever since then.

...about just about everything, but they always lie about Cuba, and the real reasons we still have an embargo.

When Castro too over, he kicked out the American Sugar companies, and kick out the American run Casinos and "banks" where the rich Americans went to spend and launder their money. It's not about Communism, it's about getting back the properties that "Castro stole" from the wealthy Americans.

Status quo prevails simply because there's too much campaign dollars to be reaped by politicians on both sides of the issue. Many people are mistaken when they say that the sanctions are a repug issue. There's a near even mix of Dems and repugs who seek the end of sanctions as well as the maintaining of them.

I live in Miami, and I've heard the malicious lies about Cuba, and the usual Castro this and Castro that, spew forth from just as many Dems as repukes at (or seeking) all levels of political office.

I've only heard one presidential hopeful actually unequivocally state that the embargo should be gone - that was Dennis Kucinich.


charts from opensecrets.org

count on him at least a couple of times each year to help them push and shove people around when measures kept coming back up to drop the travel ban, and to drop the embargo. He was always "there" for them. Too, too bad they lost their pal.