Joe Thoele, an Effingham County, Illinois board member, was tired of his state’s continued assault on the Second Amendment and decided to do something about it. On Monday he persuaded seven of the other eight board members to declare his county a “sanctuary” county, ordering county employees not to enforce any new infringements coming from Springfield, the state’s capitol. Said Thoele, “I would just like to send a statement to Springfield that I don’t want them to be infringing on our Second Amendment rights as legal gun owners.” After all, echoed Effingham state’s attorney Bryan Kibler, “If you can be a sanctuary county for undocumented immigrants, why can’t you be one for firearms?”
The board meeting was attended by a near-record number of Effingham County’s 34,000 residents, according to local news sources. The Fox News affiliate reported that the resolution was motivated by a similar resolution passed by Iroquois County, Illinois, in March, “opposing the passage of … any bill where the 100th Illinois General Assembly desires to restrict the individual right of U.S. citizens as protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.” That resolution resolved
that the People of Iroquois County, Illinois, do hereby oppose the enactment of any legislation that would infringe upon the Right of the People to keep and bear arms and consider such laws to be unconstitutional and beyond lawful Legislative Authority.
BE IT FURTHER RESOVLED, that the Iroquois County Board demands that the Illinois General Assembly cease further actions restricting the Right of the People to keep and bear arms, and hereby demand that the Governor of Illinois veto all such legislation which restricts the Right of the People to keep and bear arms.
In February of 2013, the 600 members of the National Assembly of People’s Power and the 1600 provincial government representatives voted for Miguel Diaz Canal to be vice president. As of April 2018, Miguel Diaz Canal will reign supreme over Cuba as Raul Castro steps down.
While the Cuban military runs most of the operations in Cuba including all tourism, it is predicted under Miguel Diaz Canal, the junta will expand in Cuba. Cuba remains on the U.S. State Department Tier 2 Watchlist because of human trafficking.
Cuba remains in an economic crisis and has been patching this crisis with oil agreements with Venezuela, attempting to increase agriculture production and applying some reforms. Meanwhile Cuba has asked Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom for debt forgiveness which in total is estimated in the $11 billion range. Russia wrote off $32 billion in Soviet era debt of Cuba in 2014.
As a continued threat to the United States, Russia re-opened a signals intelligence facility at Lourdes and two Russian oil companies, Gazprom and Zarubezhneft, have continued offshore oil drilling exploration operations. In 2014, President Xi of China visited Cuba to sign 29 trade agreements along with debt and credit cooperation concessions.
In 2013, a weapons shipment on board a North Korea ship that left Cuba bound for the return to North Korea was discovered raising additional concerns for sanctions violations of both countries. The ship’s cargo was discovered in Panama due to suspicions of carrying illicit narcotics.
In 2009, the Obama administration began a significant shift in policy toward Cuba launching a new beginning which led to the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana. Yet nothing in Cuba changed with regard to human rights violations but some dissident prisoners were released and there were some Cuba spies released from the United States back to Cuba. U.S. citizen Alan Gross was also released from prison by Cuba and returned to the United States. In at least four rounds of talks with Cuba to reestablish diplomatic relations with the United States, Barack Obama sent a resolution to Congress to removed Cuba from the designation of a State Sponsor of International Terrorism. There were no objections by Congress and the rescission of this designation was removed.
Further, under Barack Obama many other initiatives were launched including law enforcement cooperation, smuggling prevention, technical exchanges, environmental, banking, maritime issues, counter-narcotics, trade, travel and cyber-crime. Continued health cooperation, direct mail services and oil spill preparedness were all part of the Obama new era policies.
The Trump administration has made statements indicating a reversal to some of the policy changes made during the Obama administration. This also includes operations at Guantanamo Bay.Meanwhile, Cuba still protects fugitives from justice including Assata Shakur also known as Joanne Chesimard that killed a New Jersey State police officer when she was a member of the Black Liberation Army. Another fugitive is William Guillermo Morales, a member of FALN that a domestic terror group convicted in New York for bomb production and weapons charges in cases going back to 1978.
There are continued property claims totaling 5911 where private property and that of U.S. corporations were confiscated by the Cuban government. The value of these claims is in the $10.9 billion and no resolution is in sight.
So, as Raul Castro passe power to a younger groomed and mentored communist, there is no reason to consider that relations and conditions will improve or move closer to a democratic process in Cuba. Not to be overlooked, the matter of a still unclear health attack of U.S. and Canadian diplomats assigned to the embassy in Havana has not been resolved. Both the United States and Canada have removed personnel as a result of debilitating health issues where Cuba has not protected or mitigated these acoustic attacks in and around the homes of diplomatic housing quarters.
Miguel Diaz Canal will continue to carry on the Castro regime and communist party platform. In fact, it is said that Miguel Diaz Canal will in fact be much more of a hardliner than that of the previous Castro regime.
In a videotaped private meeting with Communist Party members, Cuban Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel — often portrayed as a moderate politician with a quiet disposition — took on an all too familiar hardline tone that offered a rare glimpse into his ideology.
In the video, which has quickly spread across social media platforms, Díaz-Canel lashed out against Cuban dissidents, independent media and embassies of several European countries, accusing them all of supporting subversive projects.
For the United States, he had this message: Cuba will not make any concessions.
“The U.S. government… invaded Cuba, put the blockade [embargo] in place, imposed restrictive measures. Cuba did not do any of that, so in return for nothing they have to solve those asymmetries if they want relations and if they want normalization of the relations,” Díaz-Canel said in the February meeting captured on video and published by Cuban dissident Antonio Rodiles on YouTube this week.
Socialism is not the Answer 