As a public service, the following is the first installment in an ongoing series that starts today and will continue through election day, November 2nd. The data provided comes courtesy of The Shark Tank, a Florida politics blog.
The campaign of Joe Garcia, the Democratic candidate for Florida’s 25th congressional district, has a lot of friends. And since nothing says friendship better than a fat check, they have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Joe Garcia’s campaign. It is important that South Florida voters learn just who are these friends since few things rings truer than the old adage, “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.”
So let’s meet some of Joe Garcia friends:
John Cabanas– Owner of C&T
Donated-$7100Loann Cabanas
Donated-$800Adalgiza Cabanas
Donated-$7100
“I support the revolution very strongly, very passionately,” he said. “I am integrated into the revolution in the deepest part of my being . . . I love Fidel like my father, and I believe he loves me like his son.”John Cabanas, of C&T Charters, is perhaps the least known but the most powerful owner in a group that includes Vivian Mannerud, who followed her father into the business after he was convicted in the 1980s of “trading with the enemy,” in part for taking four Pepsi machines to Cuba; and Francisco Aruca, owner of Marazul Charters, who sneaked out of a Castro-run prison dressed as a child, but now praises Cuba on his Miami radio show. A large man, quick to laugh and partial to linen Guayaberas with a gold plane pinned to the collar, Mr. Cabanas, 66, grew up in Key West, Fla., but spent 28 years in Cuba. He says his company is the largest of the seven or eight that fly there regularly. NYT: Charter Companies Flying to Cuba Thrive
Certainly since the new White House policy was announced last month, business is booming. “We used to send 15,000, 16,000 people a year,” Mr. Cabanas said. “Now I’ll probably handle 40,000 or 50,000.”
He insists that his prices — though at least double the cost of flying to the Bahamas — are fair when seen in context. In his view, customers like Ms. Sabatela, who was traveling on a C&T flight to Camagüey, fail to appreciate the industry’s challenges.
Yes, people like Cabanas are repugnant slimeballs, but who’s keeping them in business? Who’s paying their inflated fees? This year, there is apparently a record number of Miami-to-Cuba flights booked for December, even though the prices have been nearly doubled to take advantage of the high demand for the holidays. People are STILL going and still paying. Anytime abuse is tolerated, abuse WILL happen, period. I’ll leave it at that, because this is an extremely unpleasant topic, and I’m not even talking about Cabanas and his kind.
Not to deviate much off topic, but…. doesn’t Joe look a bit – well, feminine, with those locks? His hair, IMHO, gets more and more “stylish” each time I see him.
Bah, it’s Monday, maybe it’s my eyesight. Or the airbrush/photoshop.
Asombra,
What you say is 100% true. But that’s a reality we know all too well. Los sinverguenzas that go to Cuba often as if it were just another country with respecting that those relatives they visit are being abused with the same dollars they spend. But the important thing in this post is that Joe has had smarmy pro-castro donors in two election cycles. He’s on the board of the CANF. It’s a reason he can’t be taken seriously as a politician and must be taken seriously as an enemy of Cuban freedom.
The way I look at it, the Cuban exile community has no shortage of sinverguenzas doing harm to the cause of freedom in Cuba. However, we don’t have to compound that bad situation by sending one of their darlings to congress.