Meanwhile...

Trump threatens to cut off HIV medication to Zambia unless they cede mineral rights to the US

Trump says he thinks he will have the ‘honor’ of ‘taking Cuba’

After Venezuela, Trump hints the entire hemisphere is in play

As President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for now, he and top aides made clear that the U.S. may not stop there — and demanded that the rest of the world take note.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Venezuela’s long-time dictator, Nicolas Maduro, captured in an overnight raid and extradited to New York on Saturday to be indicted on narco-conspiracy charges, “had a chance” to leave on his own before becoming the latest example of a leader paying a high price for not responding to Trump’s pressure.

“He effed around and he found out,” Hegseth said of Maduro.

The menacing comments were interwoven with specific threats toward three other countries that could soon be in the administration’s sights: Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.

The rest of the hemisphere is paying attention, and attempting to push back on Trump through condemnations of the strike itself and warnings of what could come next.

“All nations of the region must remain alert, as the threat hangs over all,” the Cuban government said in a statement.

The administration’s warnings, meanwhile, are getting bolder and more definitive. Trump again accused Colombia’s president of “making cocaine” and reaffirmed his past threats that he “does need to watch his ass.” He predicted “we will be talking about Cuba.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a more sinister threat of future American action.

“Look, if I lived in Havana and I worked in the government, I’d be concerned,” Rubio said.

Earlier during a phone interview with Fox News, Trump warned that “something will have to be done about Mexico,” stating that he’s asked President Claudia Sheinbaum if she wants the U.S. military’s “help” in rooting out drug cartels.

“American dominance in the Western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump said.

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And now for something a bit more serious

Dan Carlin discusses the background of one of the  most important, and largely forgotten, chapters in American history. The pivotal moment when the United States decided to step into the world of Great Power politics and conflicts, and began its transformation into the imperial power it is has become.

Fred on Cuba

...The embargo is the mean-spirited vengeance on the wrong people by a Washington miffed because Fidel beat them. He was a monster, yes, but Washington has never shown a disposition to avoid the company of monsters. Thing is, he won, and he made clowns of the CIA—or more correctly was a bystander as they made fools of themselves. This Washington cannot forgive.

What earthly purpose is the strangulation of the island thought to serve? Yes, yes, I kinow. “Castro is a Comminiss.” Right, got it. Today, Cuba. Tomorrow Arkansas. And so a ratpack of naïve adolescent petulants in the Senate are going to save the free world, which barely includes the United States, from a tiny impoverished country impoverished because we are saving the world from it. Whatever happened to grownups?

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Raul Castro announces retirement in 2018

HAVANA - Cuban leader Raul Castro announced on Sunday he would step down from power after his second term as president ends in 2018, and the new parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most visible successor.

Castro, 81, made the announcement in a nationally broadcast speech shortly after the Cuban National Assembly elected him to a second five-year term in the opening session of the new parliament.

"This will be my last term," Castro said.

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Fidel Castro says Cuban economic model is not working

HAVANA — Fidel Castro said Cuba's economic model no longer works, a U.S.-based journalist reported on Wednesday following interviews with the former president last week.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, wrote in a blog that he asked Castro, 84, if Cuba's model — Soviet-style communism — was still worth exporting to other countries and he replied, "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."

The comment appeared to reflect Castro's agreement, which he also expressed in a column for Cuban media in April, with his younger brother President Raul Castro, who has initiated modest reforms to stimulate Cuba's troubled economy.

Goldberg said Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington who accompanied him to Havana, believed Castro's words reflected an acknowledgment that "the state has too big a role in the economic life of the country."

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