Rubiozone Update

* Some fortnights are better than others.

If karma matters, Marco Rubio’s “next generation” presidential candidacy won’t survive his oxymoronic approach to Cuba.

He’s already on the record for being “prepared to change strategies toward Cuba.” In other words, the would-be avatar of generational change would, from “Day One” begin to roll back the measures of detente between the U.S. and Cuba initiated by the Obama administration.

In effect, his millennial take would return the U.S. to a Cold War mentality. Anyone nostalgic for  the foreign policy of John Foster Dulles?

Of course, if karma always mattered, “American exceptionalism” would have already interceded and Rubio would be nothing more than a notorious, disingenuously glib, right-wing Miami bartender.

*Rubio’s defense of government subsidies for the sugar industry, is beyond, well, defense. This answer proves it. Eliminating the subsidies, said Rubio, would leave this country “at the mercy of a foreign country for food security.”

Employing awful hyperbole and being on the rhetorical side of corporate welfare are not winners. And being called out by anti-tax standard-bearer Grover Norquist has been well noted.

* Almost on cue, the U.S. and Cuba signed a memorandum in Havana to work out details of, among other things, a marine preservation and sanctuary accord. Also included: an agreement that would clear the way for American companies to provide the latest blow-out preventers and other pollution controls to limit oil spills and contain any slicks before they could impact Florida.  Cuba expects to resume its search for oil by 2017.

Such accords–impacting the ecosystem we share and need–would be imperiled on a certain “Day One.”

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