Kathy Castor's trip to Cuba last week has been extensively reported on this Web site and throughout the Tampa Bay media. Although other members of Congress have been calling for years to end the economic embargo, Castor may be the first member of the Florida delegation while in office to go so far as to say that trade and travel restrictions no longer make sense after 51 years.
But the fact of the matter is there's really only one person who can change the fate of the sanctions, and that man is Barack Obama. After Castor said on Monday that she would discuss her thoughts and feelings with Secretary of State John Kerry and perhaps even the president, I asked her why the president would frankly follow her advice, when another Florida congressional Democrat with a closer pipeline into him, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has a very different attitude towards the Cuban government, and also happens to be the chair of the Democratic National Committee?
Those different takes on Cuba is playing out with the whole Beyonce and Jay-Z controversy, after the celebrity couple's visit to the island nation last week celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary made huge headlines last week.
Wasserman Schultz tells the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that she has serious questions about the couple's visit, asking what type of "people to people qualifying activity they did during this trip," and said this raises the bigger question of how the Obama administration is handling these trips overall, ever since travel was opened up in recent years for more educational opportunities.
Personally, several people I know have visited the island over the past year, so it doesn't appear to be nearly as difficult to visit as it used to (it's the only country that the U.S. government bans Americans from visiting). But the Jay-Z & Beyonce trip has opened up how the Office of Foreign Assets Control has been handling such requests, and don't be surprised if some lawmakers don't ask for hearings looking into how OFAC has been conducting its business.
But while Wasserman Schultz fumes about the celebrity couple, Castor told me on Monday she completely agrees with Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake's Tweet from Sunday about the celebrity couple's visit. Flake wrote that it was "Fine by me. Every American should have the right to travel there."
Another Florida Democrat unhappy with Beyonce and certainly displeased with Kathy Castor's visit is her (former?) supporter, Tampa attorney and Castro hardliner Ralph Fernandez, who called the Congresswoman "naive" in an interview yesterday.
In other news, Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner is defending working Floridians who say a bill floating through the Legislature would be terrible for them in trying to recapture lost wages....
And a new documentary about conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart comes to the Veterans Theater in Tampa next month.
