Especially when said Senator doesn’t seem to care about the people suffering under the fists of the dictators Trumpp openly admires.
Yes, kleptocrats who starve their people are vermin (North Korea, anyone?), but so are people who have eliminated Democracy (Russia, China) or who openly encourage death squads that operate with no fear of accountability (Philippines). I’m sure I’ve overlooked some of the emerging authoritarians in Europe. The US embrace of the various effed-up kingdoms of the Middle East is not new, but the Trumpp administration has decided that we should stop caring about human rights in countries unless and until he feels the need to vilify them.
Okay, tech world, there’s a demand out there for a browser extension that will block those stupid columns of video from appearing on the landscape screens we all use when we want to watch videos without squinting.
Actually, what Rubio is doing, with absolute premeditated malice, is to call for a commercial boycott (or vandalism) of a public figure who dared cross the rabid anti communist Cuban terrorist organizations that have operated in Miami since the Cuban Revolution. This is a tactic that those organizations have deployed since the early 60s. Puerto Rican musicians Danny Rivera and Andy Montanez, and Brazilian singer Denisse de Kalaffe were threatened and subjected to boycott calls by the Mas Canosa Cuban American Foundation and by Omega 66, both political extortionists who have operated in Miami sort of like the Mafia because they had all previously performed concerts in Cuba. Rubio is not original. And he is a acting in the tradition of thugs who preceded him in this tactic.
Maduro is a tyrant. He should be in prison, not eating in a nice restaurant. Regardless of the history you state, Rubio is doing the correct thing in this instance.
Maduro is a tyrant and an asshole too. Salt Bae is entitled to serve him if he visits Salt Bae’s native country. Rubio is using a particular dog whistle and strong arm public intimidation tactic originated by gangsters and terrorists within the Cuban American Community. There is nothing correct or admirable in his copy cat invocation of their old, tired thug playbook.
“What Rubio is doing is to call for a commercial boycott of a business that engaged in practices he finds objectionable.”
Whatever the reasons? Ok. He’s allowed to do that. If we’re gonna applaud members of the administration being faced with protesters when they go out to eat, we shouldn’t be hypocritical about anyone else seeing someone they consider immoral and evil going out to eat, and expressing themselves in a non-violent manner.
ETA:
Yup. Totally is. And Rubio is entitled to call him out for it, and encourage people to avoid his businesses. Yay the system works?
Most of Rubio’s supporters don’t eat in that kind of restaurant. They tend to frequent Hooters, KFC, Domino’s, etc. These are the people who believe Taco Bell has the best Mexican food.
Well, you are entitled to compare it or opine it is exactly the equivalent of Sessions eating at a Mexican joint. During the time I was in college in the 70s, the Cuban terrorist organizations murdered Carlos Muniz Varela, the liberal Cuban exile owner of a Puerto Rico travel agency called Viajes Varadero. He had the temerity to run organized tours to Cuba. In Miami they beat up and intimidated people in their community who deviated from their rabid anti communist line. I don’t view what they were doing and the tradition that Marco is joining as mere First Amendment Expression. I dont believe there was a healthy First Amendment right to disagree with their viewpoint in Miami for at least 40 years.
Yup. Let’s totally call someone exercising their Constitutional right to free speech the equivalent of being a Nazi. That’s your right. Good show.
Again: I’ve no love of Marco Rubio or his politics. But yes, this is legal. This is how we are supposed to call people out for welcoming those we believe to be evil.
Murder is not free speech. Has Rubio said ‘murder this man’? Has he called for any kind of violence or criminal retaliation?
Truth, from a fictional character.
Rubio’s a slime, and an ass, and a vicious little shit who should be run out of office… but he’s not advocating any crime. And he’s not doing anything illegal here.
I never said he was doing anything illegal. And I didnt call him a Nazi. The Miami political extortion and intimidation structure existed. It beat up people and shut down political candidates and media that dissented from the party line. Carlos Muniz Varela was murdered, for providing organized travel to Cuba. And Rubio didnt call for Salt Bae’s murder, but if you think he wasnt goading the rabid anti communists to go show up there and intimidate customers or, possibly vandalize the place, and all he was doing was telling people “Do not eat here,” then, there is a bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan you might be interested in.
I know that bridge well. And while that may be the message some people receive, the fact remains that unless there’s proof that he’s doing it with that intent… he’s not doing anything wrong.
And I know you didn’t call him a Nazi. Look at the post directly above mine, that I was replying to before folding the response to you into the same post.
Poor Marco, he must believe that it was the Obama Administration that allowed this individual into the USA, not his own party’s “leader / autocrat”/ Soon he will be complaining when Donald and Maduro have a round of golf and he isn’t invited.
No complaints of the President inviting at Putin’s request the Russian ambassador, Foreign Minister (spy), russian media (no American media) into the OVAL office?
