Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart to retire

[last_texas_dem]

Source: Hotline

>>>Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) will announce later today he will not seek another term, CongressDaily reports this morning.

Diaz-Balart is the 18th House GOPer to step down, and one of the few who holds a seat that Dems could target. In '08, he defeated Dem Raul Martinez by 16 pointes, even though the DCCC spent money in his Miami-Dade and Broward Co. district.

The district is heavily Hispanic, thanks to Miami's large Cuban population. 73% of district residents call themselves Hispanic, while just 16% are white. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) won a narrow 51%-49% victory in the seat.

First elected in '92, Diaz-Balart has had little trouble holding on to his seat. His brother, Mario, represents another heavily-Cuban part of Miami. CongressDaily reports that Mario Diaz-Balart will abandon his district to run in Lincoln's, which is seen as tilting more toward the GOP.>>>

Read more: http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/02/diazbalart_to_r.php

---

For all the talk of this being a potentially great election year for the Repugs, there certainly are a lot of retirements on their side. Not sure what that means...

[asjr]

1. I can remember just before Castro seized power in

Cuba, most of the wealthy Batistaites left in droves for Miami.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Here's material on the creepy, powerful Diaz-Balarts:

Regarding the father of the Miami beasties:

~snip~
I watched an odd video at Generation Miami yesterday. In a TV interview about his and his brother's hysterical denunciation of President Obama's overly mild moves towards normalization of relations with Cuba, the younger and dumber brother, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart compared the Cuban-American supporters of Obama's reforms-- i.e., many of his constituents-- to those who wanted to, do business, and did business with Hitler and supported that fascist, murderous regime... because what the heck, let's just do business with them because there's a buck to be made.

First of all, if I recall my history correctly, he just described confirmed Nazi sympathizer Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of two presidents and a governor who Mario and the entire the Diaz-Balart clan has supported in a zombie-like, rubber stamp fashion. But beyond that, notice in the clip how Mario gets audibly agitated when he says the words "supported that fascist, murderous regime." Could that be because his own family has quite the history of taking a prominent role in a "fascist, murderous regime?"

The notorious and extremely corrupt Diaz-Balart brothers are two of the four sons of a real life fire-breathing fascist themselves, Rafael Lincoln Díaz-Balart y Gutiérrez. Rafael, who was a very corrupt, extreme right Majority Leader of the Cuban House of Representatives also served as the Minister of the Interior in the brutal Batista dictatorship. His activities overseeing the systematic torture of political prisoners didn't stop corrupt political hack Kendrick Meek (D-FL) from introducing legislation in 2007 to honor the dead fascist.

In this country Rafael was one of the worst instigators of a right-wing backlash against the hero of the Cuban Revolution, his brother-in-law and former best friend, Fidel Castro. Rafael, along with the entire hideous and degenerate Ancien Regime fled to the U.S., where he started the first of the violent rightist anti-Castro organizations, la Rosa Blanca, the predecessor of the Cuban-American National Foundation, the instigator of the policy of economic war against Cuba.

Conservative Cubans in Florida have created a myth about their coming to America: They were a poor but heroic people who fled the communist tyranny of Cuba. Through diligence and hard work they built up their economic and political power in Florida.

Of course, some Cubans, particularly those who arrived in later years, were poor. However, key wealthy individuals arrived with their entire families and bank accounts intact. These early 1960s immigrants included officials of the Batista dictatorship, professionals, and millionaire businessmen, such as the owners of Bacardi rum. Settling in Puerto Rico, Miami, Los Angeles, and New Jersey, they quickly established business and political contacts. They started operating as they had in Cuba: mixing business, politics and corruption.

For example, Rafael Diaz-Balart ran the dreaded Ministry of the Interior as deputy minister under Batista. His sons Lincoln and Mario went on to become key players in the Cuba Lobby and eventually won election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Former Havana police officials migrated to Miami and quickly set up the same rackets they had run back home. Ann Louise Barbach, in her book Cuba Confidential, quotes one veteran FBI agent: "To some extent, the gangsterismo of Havana was transported to Miami by a handful of early batistiano (Batista) arrivals... They set up shop here just like they did in Havana-- running protection rackets and illegal gambling."

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/04/diaz-balart-family-does-like-fascism.html

~~~~~~
Rafael Diaz-Balart worked as an attorney for the United Fruit Company in Cuba before launching his political career in Cuba which lead to serving in the cabinet of bloody butcher puppet dictator, dirty Fulgencio Batista.

Here's a quick look at conditions in Cuba (supported whole heartedly by Rafael Diaz-Balart, and the other Cuban first wave immigrants after the revolution) for the huge numbers of seasonal agricultural workers who only could get work during a PART of the year, and lived without resources the rest of the time, written by former Cuban citizen, Dr. Alberto Jones:

As someone who lived through a similar bestiality, to which these individuals seems to be genetically predisposed, I can attest to what life was like in Banes, Cuba, for thousands of emigrants from the English Speaking Caribbean Islands and Haiti, lured to Cuba by the United Fruit Company as cheap labor.

In charge of implementing and enforcing vicious racist and segregationists laws, was Dr. Rafael Diaz Balart, recently honored by the US Congress and Florida International University, by giving his name to one of their buildings. His meritorious curriculum was later followed by his son, Dr. Rafael Diaz Balart, father of Florida US Congressmen Mario and Lincoln Diaz Balart, both born again humanists and staunch supporters of these cruel measures.

In our community, “on the other side of the tracks”, we were forced to live in thatched shacks without electricity, running water, jobs, schools or their preferred weapon of subjugation: Healthcare! What we did have, was rampant infant mortality, hunger, hundreds of deaths through preventable diseases and the infamous gully with its putrid effluent, running through our community spreading disease and deaths.

With the mass media at their disposal, they will continue to do what they have practiced since time immemorial. They will attempt to discredit this and other factual statements about their murky past and repugnant present. Everyone who reads this testament is invited, not to believe it, but to visit the cemeteries in Banes, Naranjo Dulce, Marti, Baguanos, Chaparra, Baragua and tens of others Cuban Soweto’s, large and medium size cities across the country and please, take the time to read what is engraved on the crosses and headstone, all of which are mute indictments of their horrendous past.

The world needs to know them!. They assume that all of those they abused, vilified or caused the death to their family members or neighbors, are still illiterate, unable to speak for themselves and remind them of their deeds. Wrong!

I remember and denounce, when mothers with children knocked on doors every night, asking for your left over, as their only meal .

I remember when a family member was ill, you did not go to the hospital, you went to the home of one of these “powerful” individuals and pleaded for a note written by them, if you were to be admitted to the hospital.

I still remember when we were branded at birth, our future decided and were not allow to work in department stores, office settings or drive a Greyhound-type bus, while boys at the age of 12 or 13 went to the fields and girls the same age, became maids.

I remember when the Public School System in Cuba provided a hot cup of chocolate, a couple of crackers and a bonus on Fridays, consisting on a slice of white cheese, knowing that most students had nothing to eat except this hand-out. Shortly after Batista’s coup d’etat, the cheese disappeared, the chocolate followed suit and one day, they came by collecting our aluminum cups! Some of the executioners of this brutal violations of children rights and their descendents, are now leaders in many anti Castro Human Rights, Religious and Social groups in south Florida, tearfully decrying the plight of those living in Cuba. What a bunch of hypocrites!!

More:
http://afrocubaweb.com/albertojones/albertojones10.htm

http://www.terrorfileonline.org.nyud.net:8090/es/images/Rafael_D%C3%ADaz_Balart_Guti%C3%A9rrez.jpg http://estaticos02.cache.el-mundo.net.nyud.net:8090/elmundo/imagenes/2005/05/10/1115405105_0.jpg

Raphael Diaz-Balart, Speaker, Cuba's House of Representatives. and later Miami political figure.



Rafael Diaz-Balart, right, dictator
Fulgencio Batista, on the left.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org.nyud.net:8090/cuba/masferrer-58.jpg

On the right, powerful publisher, senator, leader of his
own personal death squad, "Masferrer's Tigers," Rodolfo Masferrer.
They snatched dissidents off the street, tortured them, and
threw them out on the street, or hung them from lightpoles
as a public warning.

He was killed when someone bombed his car in Florida
after he ran out following the Cuban revolution.

In the center, Rafael Diaz Balart. On the left, Rodolfo Masferrer.

http://i81.servimg.com.nyud.net:8090/u/f81/14/11/92/84/1perso10.jpg

Fidel Castro and his first wife, Mirta Diaz-Balart, sister of Rafael Diaz

Balart, and aunt of Florida Congressmen, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart.

http://www.semana.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/1431/ImgArticulo_T2_65692_2009103_144942.jpg

Fidel Castro's, Mirta Diaz-Balart's son,
Fidel, Cuba, with mother Mirta, Spain.

http://i.realone.com.nyud.net:8090/assets/rn/img/3/4/9/0/13900943-13900945-large.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_YV2gEA9DNhw/RnwETD9d2bI/AAAAAAAAEmQ/3cYN8d9-lvc/s400/LincolnDiaz-Balart.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com.nyud.net:8090/images/2006/03/08/national/miami.184.3.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/3047/2299762910_24fe2087cd.jpg

Lincoln and Mario Diaz Balart, with the _Bush brothers, Mario behind Lincoln.

[asjr]

11. Thank you for posting this. Most of our country

doesn't know the truth about what happened. We, since Castro appeared in our Congress, have "understood" he was a bad man. We were not taught the ones who fled were even worse. This country was very happy to deal with Batista and his cohorts including Meyer Lansky and others of his ilk but after they left we isolated Cuba.

[classysassy]

13. When Castro went before the UN

he had to move his delegation to a hotel in harlem( the St. Theresa),because the major hotels in New York wound not accept blacks.Having poor blacks in his delegation was another reason our racist press vilified Cuba.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Correction for the info. on the two Masferrer brothers with Rafael Diaz Balart (father)

I got the two creepy murderous brothers confused.

Here's an accurate caption for the photo I posted, taken from "Murder in Exile" is:



Rodolfo Masferrer (left), Rafael Diaz-Balart (center), and Rolando Masferrer
at a political rally in Chivirico, Sierra Maestra, 1958.
Rolando was the politician, publisher, operator of his death squad, Masferrer's Tigers. From a Miami Herald article, "Murder in Exile":

The Miami Herald
April 18, 1976, 1-D
Murder in Exile

. . . Exile Leaders’ Deaths Unsolved

By EDNA BUCHANAN
Herald Staff Writer

Easter Week, 1974: Controversial Cuban exile leader Jose de la Torriente is shot dead. Metro police hunt the sniper. They call it "a monumental task."

Easter Week, 1976: Controversial Cuban exile Ramon Donestevez is shot. Metro police hunt the killer.

During the two years between: bullets cut down Cuba-coexistance advocate Luciano Nieves, 43, in.a hospital parking lot; a dynamite bomb kills anti-Castro revolutionary Rolando Masferrer, 58; Bay of Pigs leader Higinio Diaz, 51, and exile activist Jose Antonio Mulet, 55, survive bullet wounds in separate shootings. There are no arrests.

~snip~
Six months later, Donestevez surfaced in the Masferrer murder case. They each operated Spanish-language newspapers. Donestevez' paper, which was to be distributed the day a car bomb killed Masferrer, carried Masferrer's photo, inscribed with the Spanish initials meaning "Rest in Peace."

Donestevez explained to police that it was not meant in the context in which some may have taken it. He meant, he said that Masferrer was dead, not literally, but in local politics.

Now Donestevez, too, is dead and police are working overtime.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/murder-exile.htm

(Read the article for a view of Miami you've probably never seen. This is CRAZY.)

Here's a reference to Masferrer's Tigers taken from an article on some women of Cuba's revolution:

Here is how General Teté Puebla described her motivation, and it parallels the motivations of countless other Cuban girls and women like her: “In my village, Batista’s Masferrer Tigers would tie innocent victims up and put them in a sack, pour gasoline on them, and set them on fire. Girls in my village, including a relative, were gang raped by 50 or more of Batista’s soldiers. The brutality from the nearby Manzanillo barracks was intended to quell any anti-Batista dissent from the peasants. I was a 14-year-old peasant girl when I saw that happening. It didn’t quell me. I had to fight back. The only fight that was going anywhere was Celia’s fight in the Sierra. When I got there, there were other girls inspired like me, just as good at fighting as me. That’s how the all-girl Mariana Grajales Platoon formed. Fidel, who joined Celia in December of 1956 and was at her side day and night after that, actually named the platoon ‘Mariana Grajales.’”

http://celiasanchez.org/

[Pirate Smile]

2. Looks like a possible pick-up in the Bro's district. Good.

[ensho]

3. GOOD

nt

[groundloop]

4. I bet MSM won't cover this. If it were a Dem retiring they'd be all over it

Do we know which Democrat is running? Maybe some contributions through ActBlue are in order.

[last_texas_dem]

5. Yeah, Republican retirements don't fit into the media "narrative"

despite the fact that there have been several more retirement announcements on their side- and they have a smaller caucus!

I'm not sure what the story is on potential Democratic candidates right now. I read about the district on the CQ Politics site, and it sounded like the Democrats had been having a difficult time recruiting a candidate. This announcement should definitely generate some enthusiasm. M D-B only beat his Democratic opponent by 6 points last time around, and winning an open seat is always easier than going up against an incumbent.

[Mz Pip]

6. Only one thing to say:

Good riddance. :bounce:

I remember him being all over the cable shows during the Clinton Impeachment. What a nasty piece of work he is.

Mz Pip

[Judi Lynn]

8. Lincoln Diaz Balart destroyed the political career of a great Colorado Dem. Congressman.

Here's how Republican Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart handed Democratic Congressman, David Skaggs, from Colorado his ass when Skaggs, acting to curtail stupid excesses in the budget, attempted to get Cuban "exile" controlled, staffed, programmed, US taxpayer-financed, TV Marti removed as an ENORMOUS financial burden (over $30,000,000.00 annually) removed from the burden exhausting the US American taxpayers:

Dealing from principle --- ex-Representative Skaggs

However, in 1993, former Representative David Skaggs (D-CO), in an attempt to trim unnecessary budgetary spending targeted for the Martis, was able to convince his House brethren to block funding for the two operations --- a measure which did not meet the same success in the Senate, where it was inevitably defeated. Skaggs paid a high price for his bold move, and came under withering fire from anti-Havana hardliners. Marti’s congressional supporters, led by none other than treasury plunderer Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart responded with a stark warning that revenge would be exacted on those who might threaten the continuation of the Marti operation, making an example of Skaggs by attempting to slash federal funding for projects in his home district. However, Skaggs refused to give up the fight, and he continued his campaign against the project, in particular its television component, until he retired in 1998. Skaggs admitted, "You know that if you kick the Cuba issue, you're going to have a bad day.” As a result of his personal experience, the Miami New Times reported in a November 12, 1998 article that Skaggs bitterly expressed outrage at the “corruption of United States policy that is inherent in our Cuba policy,” explaining, “by corruption I mean the untoward influence of a relatively small segment of the population in Florida and the money that small segment of the population brings to bear, and how it distorts the policy choices this government makes.”

Not only does the overwhelming influence of the Miami anti-Castro power brokers impede any attempt to reduce funding for the programs, but their political firepower also has diluted efforts which should have been made to reform these broadcasting agencies. According to Lawrence Grossman, former president of NBC News, he, along with several other journalists and academics, were asked by former CBS News president David Burke, who in the mid-1990s had the job of overseeing Radio and TV Marti, to report on the project’s accuracy, professionalism and sense of fairness. The group then proceeded to pose the theoretical question, what would happen “if {they} concluded that the influential chairman of the President’s Advisory Broadcasting Board for Cuban Broadcasting, Jorge Mas Canosa, should resign?” The response they received was “no way” --- there was an upcoming election and Congressional candidates heavily dependent on the Cuban-exile vote would be unwilling to risk provoking the hostility of such a powerful group. As a result, Grossman and his colleagues declined the offer, and the potentially revealing document was never executed. Grossman concluded, “{TV Marti} is a folly imposed on us by politically powerful Cuban exile groups that neither party wants to offend.”

More:
http://cubajournal.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html

http://www.w3w3.com/2005_Events/09H/05-09-08_SFTP/a04.David%20Skaggs,JMorgese,JoeWaz,RollandJohnson,DGillmor.jpg

David Skaggs, in the group, is the man on the left. Say "goodbye" to this fine Congressman who
had to leave office, after acts of revenge by Diaz-Balart and the Miami right-wing CANF, due
to his attempt to cut out pork right-wing "exiles" insist on keeping, at our great expense.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org.nyud.net:8090/elian/elian-ileana.jpg

Here's Lincoln Diaz Balart, making a political football of the little Cuban kid
who washed ashore, the survivor of a trip taken by his mother, who took him
without his father's permission, on a run to Miami, with her ex-con boyfriend,
Lazaro Munero, who had made the trip back and forth multiple times. Lincoln Diaz
Balart is standing with little Elian Gonzalez, and fellow radical reactionary
right-winger Cuban "exile" Congressperson, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

[Owl]

9. Good.

[UTUSN]

10. K&R #5 for another wingnut gone. If only the ros-LECITHIN would go, too n/t

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JCMach1]

14. Should read: Douchebag to be Replaced by Relative Douchebag

[Robb]

15. It means the sky is not falling, despite our DU chicken littles. nt

[Judi Lynn]

16. South Florida’s Cuban-American Republicans will find it harder to keep congressional seats

Guillermo Martinez: South Florida’s Cuban-American Republicans will find it harder to keep congressional seats
By Guillermo I. Martinez
February 18, 2010

~snip~
Lincoln's departure from Congress also benefits his brother Mario, also a Republican congressman from South Florida. On the day his brother said he was not running for re-election, Mario announced he would change districts and run in Lincoln's more Republican-friendly district.

The district that Mario vacates may yet be filled by another South Florida Republican, at least in the elections to be held this November. Without Barack Obama at the head of the ticket, it may be difficult for a Democrat to win that seat this year.

Past that, Lincoln's resignation is a clear signal that politics in South Florida are changing. When the Florida Legislature draws up new districts, according to the state's population as determined by this year's census, it will be hard to draw up three congressional districts in South Florida that will give the Republican Party three Cuban-American representatives.

The Cuban-American community in South Florida is no longer as homogeneous as it once was in opposition to Democratic candidates. The population of the area is changing. There are more non-Cuban Latins; more white and black Americans.

So as Lincoln comes back to the area to practice law and carry on his father's dream, the Cuban-American community will have to adapt to the idea that the Republican Party's grip on this area is likely to diminish. If not in 2010, then probably in 2012.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/commentary/fl-cubans-republicans-martinez-021810-20100218,0,4759422.story

Not one moment too soon. Long, long overdue.

[heliarc]

17. FAN-Efffing TASTIC!

Good Riddance!

[Change Happens]

18. God, I hate these bastards: the Balard brothers...I live in South Florida

Thank God, but not in their districts!!!

Good riddance...

[lumpy]

19. Kick

up