LIFE AND NEWS NOTES: Cuba

Sunday 23 August 2026

CUBA

ARTICLE: Balls, Katy (8/15/26) “Is the Cuban regime about to be toppled?” The Sunday Times.

LIFE AND NEWS NOTES FROM AN ELDERLY, OVER-EDUCATED, CHILDLESS, CAT LADY BEAVERING AWAY IN ONE OF THE SUB-BASEMENTS O THE MINISTRY OF SNARK.

· Marco Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants. His parents left three years before the 1959 revolution. His mother tried to return a few years later but “Fidel Castro’s dictatorship made it impossible.” (Note: I have no idea what that means. The quote is from the article.)

· Rubio claims in his memoir “An American Son,” that he promised his grandfather that he would “some day lead an army of exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro and become president of a free Cuba.” (Note: Quote from the memoir.)

· One former Trump aide is quoted in the article as saying “Marco wants to end up in Cuba. It’s his life’s work.”

· Rubio’s life work has resulted in policies that in Cuba are “brutal.”

· The State Department issued a report last month entitled “Cuba: The Capital of 21^st-Century Communism” obviously intended to make the case that Cuba was a life threat to America today.

· A figure close to the Trump administration was reported as saying: “…if they have to take it, they’ll take it.”

· The preference would be for the current presiden Miguel Diaz-Canal to step down. Rubio send a message to Cubans on Cuba’s Independence day, blaming the Cuban government for the Blackouts and food shortages. He wanted, he said, to help and offered $100 million in food and medical assistance.

· At the moment, Russia provide fuel and Beijing offers financial investment. Another “figure close to the administration” said that Cuba “was a great place pre-Castro, had a great economy, had a great tourism industry…Castro messed it up.” “It was kind of a Miami nightclub scene before you had a Miami nightclub scene.”

· Among those proposed to take a leadership role are Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro. Rual is the grandson of former president Raul Rastro and great-nephew of Fidel. “Raul has said he would step up if he had to and deal with anyone (including Trump) on the American side.

But Cuba has proven more difficult than Americans have often thought. In 1961, John F. Kennedy approved the Bay of Pigs invasion – “the CIA-financed operation in which 1,400 Cuban exiles landed on the shores to overthrow Castro’s government – only to discover Castro had been tipped off. It was a debacle. More than 40 people died and many were held prisoner until the US paid up