LIFE AND NEWS NOTES FROM A CHILDLESS CAT LADY WORKING AWAY IN ONE OF THE SUB-BASEMENTS OF THE MINISTRY OF SNARK:

“And Cuba must be free of Spain and of the United States.” Jose Marti

As part of the ideological work necessary to legitimize the invasion of Cuba, Trump is busy adding fuel to the fire. He has stated flatly that he can “take” Cuba. “I can do anything I want with it.” (Schmidt and Faiola, 3/16/26).

While at the moment the Trump administration’s focus is on trying to get out of Iran with no good options that anybody can see, the administration is still trying to set the ground work for taking Cuba when it is feasible.

This new expanded imperial version of the United States has already set up what is essentially a Viceroyship in Venezuela. As the New York Times (Pager and Kurmanaev, 7/13/26)[1]reports, The Secretar of State, Marco Rubio already essentially controls “Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources and its government.”

Aides say that earlier this year, Trump joked about sending Rubio to Venezuela permanently. But he doesn’t have to. “He already runs Venezuela from Washington” according to reports from the New York Times and other media sources. With threats to take over Cuba, the United States essentially will have installed a Viceroy to Venezuela and Cuba.

“The United States has sent 900 military personnel to Venezuela, committed nearly $400 million in aid and delivered crates of cash to the Venezuelan government (Pager and Kurmanaev, 7/13/26).”

“The U.S. Treasury receives the revenue from most of Venezuela’s exports, then disburses it to Venezuela through the country’s banking system, a relationship,” described by the New York Times as “akin to parents handing out allowances to children (Pager and Kurmanaev, 7/13/26).”

Critics, of course, can easily see the potential for “siphoning Venezuela’s resources” off to private interests and also the reality of propping up an authoritarian government by leaving much of Maduro’s “henchmen largely in place.” This is after Rubio has spent his career presenting himself as an advocate of democracy in Latin America (Pager and Kurmanaev, 7/13/26). What a colossal hypocrite.

In addition to using the threat of Communism to ideologically justify invading Cuba, the Republican party has decided to double purpose the new “red scare” by accusing the Democratic Party of being not only full of communists, but linked ideologically, politically, and even militarily (through spies and operatives) to Cuba. There seems to be no accusation too outrageous.

In July of 2026, the State Department issued a report tying left-wing advocacy groups in the US to Cuba “often relying on circumstantial and ideological links, rather than direct connections ().” Cuba is portrayed as an ideological threat to the U.S. ”frequently using language and concepts harkening back to the Cold War.” The report argues that Cuba is trying to subvert the US from within (Harb, 7/21/26).

In the report it is claimed that Cuba was built around a near-singular obsession with the “liberation” of the Global South from its Western colonial oppressors…(Harb, 7/21/26).

“In the minds of the Cubans, there was only one path to this goal: the destruction of the Yankee imperialist regime” (Harb, 7/21/26).”

Left-wing activists in the United States are rejecting the accusations that they are linked to Cuba and pointing out that the administration seeks to increase pressure on Havana “while intensifying the crackdown on dissent inside the US (Harb, 7/21/26).” (Note: The quote is from article). The accusations are also intended to sway voters in the upcoming mid-term elections, about which the Republicans are desperate.

[1] Pager, Tyler and Anatoly Kurmanaev (7/13/26) “How Marco Rubio is running Venezuela from afar.” The New York Times.