Cash, cars and gold bars — and the crooks who slander Cuba

Senator Bob Menendez, in the news recently, is nothing but a front man for the Cuban right-wing Gusanos, those worms who left Cuba after the 1959 revolution stopped their exploitation and theft. The Democrat from New Jersey is notorious for his furious rants against Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and any country that dares to pursue a socialist path. 

Menendez has taken up other despicable causes, such as backing the “Israel Anti-Boycott Act” that would criminalize free speech in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). 

As recently as May 11, Menendez sent a vicious message to House Representatives who were calling on President Joe Biden to reverse sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela. He mislabeled the two governments “brutal dictatorships” and accused them of “mismanagement and graft.”

Then his charges of graft boomeranged. On Sept. 21, Menendez, his spouse, Nadine Menendez, and three New Jersey business people were indicted on charges that included conspiracy to commit bribery. Wael Hana and his two business partners allegedly bribed Menendez to accrue benefits for their business and for Egypt’s military government. 

According to media reports, investigators found $480,000 in cash and gold bars in the Menendez house. Bills were found spilling out of the pockets of personalized gold-embroidered suit jackets and in envelopes bearing the fingerprints of one of Menendez’s co-defendants. The bribes also included a Mercedes Benz automobile for Nadine Menendez.

Some members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have called on Menendez to resign. Not only has the four-term senator steadfastly refused, he took his opportunity in the spotlight to announce he would seek reelection in 2024. 

Offering up a crass anti-communist appeal as defense, the compromised politician stated that he was in the habit of withdrawing large (apparently very large!) sums of cash purportedly due to “the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.” A strange claim. Menendez was born in the U.S. to Cuban immigrants in 1954, five years before the Cuban Revolution.

That revolution has achieved wonders during its over 60 years of existence. It has eradicated illiteracy, offers education at no cost to the college level and free, quality medical care. These are just a few examples of the revolution’s accomplishments — in the face of the U.S. blockade.

The people of the world, for the most part, applaud these accomplishments. 

But some cruddy counterrevolutionaries in Congress — like Menendez and his nine other Gusano cronies — are probably celebrating the Sept. 25 Molotov cocktail attack on the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C., and lamenting that no one was hurt and damage was minimal. They are increasingly isolated, all the more so with Menendez exposed for the crook and hypocrite that he is.